Resident Evil: The Change
by Celeste Ravenloft
Summary: A girl with a horrible and mysterious past, her stepsister, a rookie cop, and a few others try to fight their way out of the tainted city. Will they make it alive? Not all of them... AU. OCxLeon
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Laya cried out as the zombie lunged at her face. Her handgun, fresh out of bullets, was lifted before her face defensively. Unexpectedly, a single gunshot broke the silence of the night. She gasped as blood sprayed over her face and raised arms. Turning her head, she gazed at her rescuer. He wore a police outfit, and was carrying a gun, much like her own. His silvery blonde hair fell into his eye on the right side of his face, and his light blue eyes were pronounced in the moonlight. The blue shirt embroidered with 'R.P.D.' hinted at lean muscle, and lots of it. He offered her a hand.

"You okay?" his voice was dark and low.

"Yeah, I think," She answered, allowing him to pull her up, "Thanks."

"No problem."

She shook her own chestnut hair out of her eyes, and glanced around. A girl was with him. Her red hair was pulled up in a ponytail, short and a purple red. Her blue eyes, darker than the man's, shone with life. No chance either was infected.

"Leon S. Kennedy." The man introduced himself.

"Laya D. Markl." She answered, mocking his slightly arrogant tone; very annoyed.

"Claire Redfeild." His company introduced herself, a smile on her face at Laya's tone.

"Have you two been traveling with each other long?"

"No. We just met a little while ago." Claire answered me.

"Can I tag along? There's safety in numbers." she persuaded a little, smiling.

"Three isn't much for 'numbers'." Leon commented on her word choice.

"Be quiet!" she scolded, annoyed by him.

"Sure." Claire smiled at her.

Laya took an instant liking to the girl, but though he was extremely attractive, Leon was an asshole.

"So, are you trying to pick fights with undead, or escape the city with brains intact?" Claire asked Laya, her face curious.

"I'm mostly trying to stay intelligent, with a side of escape. I rather decided I liked my already half dead mind when I realized it deteriorated with a single bite. You?" She asked, smiling.

"I'm trying to find my brother, and Leon's escaping with as many survivors he can." Claire responded.

"Sorry to interrupt your chitchat, but more are coming." Leon pointed to the entryway of the alley Laya had found herself in. Zombies were limping and ambling their way towards the trio.

"Come on, we can do what I was going to before he showed up and I ran out of ammo." Laya explained, deftly motioning to the zombie Leon killed a minute ago.

"You ran out of ammo?" Leon asked dryly as Laya shoved the gun into the waistband of her jeans, and backed up to the opposite side of the alley, then, while nodding her head, she ran and jumped up to grab the fire escape dangling midway between the ground and second story balcony of the apartment building they were standing by. Her weight dragging it down, when it hit the ground she ran up the stairs, followed by Claire and Leon. After all three were clear, she started hoisting the stairs back up to the level they were on. Leon went to the other side of the stairs and helped her.

"Here, take it." Claire captured Laya's attention when she had finished pulling up the stairs, and tossed the young girl a box of handgun ammunition. Grinning, she nodded her thanks, reloading her gun's clip.

Then she reverted her attention back to the apartment they were standing in front of. The door was sliding glass, and Laya didn't bother to open it. Raising her leg, she kicked the glass in, shattering the door into fragments that lay on the fire escape and the inside carpet. Then taking a step in, she swung her gun around the open doorway, from side to side, searching for zombies. A groan sounded to her left, whipping around, she shot the head of a woman, blood spattering everything. Another zombie.

"Search for anything of use, might want to grab a snack too. Keep your eyes and ears open, and your guns loaded." Then she commended to start searching drawers and cabinets. Leon and Claire followed her lead.

"What the-?" she jerked her hand back and stared at the creepy fuzzy thing lying in the drawer.

Leon was at her side a moment later, and when he saw it, his turn was just as quizzical.

Claire joined them at the drawer, "It's a rat."

"That is not a rat. I have seen rats, I have _owned _rats, and they do not look like that!" Laya emphasized the "not". Very distinctly.

"So then what do you propose it is, 'cause I have no idea either." A voice spoke out of the darkness.

Laya whirled with Leon and Claire; all had their guns pointed to the voice. A girl stepped into the moonlight, and flicked a switch on the wall. She had silvery hair, not blonde, but not the gray of old people. Her lavender eyes were smiling and she grinned at Laya.

"Hey Lay." Rachel LaBordeau grinned at the chestnut haired girl.

"Rach?" she asked, her green eyes narrowed as she analyzed her cousin.

"So how'd you get yourself in this mess?"

"It doesn't matter. I need to shower." And Laya then walked through the apartment to find the bathroom.

"You're taking a shower?" Leon asked as Laya walked through the now lit room they were standing in. Besides the bloody zombie, it was a fairly well decorated room. It was simple, with cabinets on both walls and halls on each side.

"Yup. Haven't showered since I left my own apartment, and have been splattered in gore." She turned to him as she said it, and he clearly saw her red-brown hair, sticky and unnaturally twisted with dried blood. Small bits of skin and more dried blood coated her bare arm and pant legs.

She turned and walked into a small bathroom, though from where he was standing, Leon could still see a shower. He frowned, muttered "hurry up" so no one in the room could hear it, and continued searching the room. The shower turned on a minute later, and was only on for about ten minutes. By then he was finished with his search, and sitting on a couch by Claire and Rachel, who were still trying to figure out what was in the drawer. Moments later, the door opened and Laya walked out in a towel. Her hair shone a bright chestnut, red highlights brightly reflecting the meager light.

"Can I borrow some clothes?" she asked her cousin.

"Of course you can Laya." Rachel stood up, and no one seemed to notice that Leon was still looking at Laya's curvy figure under the towel. But right before the two girls disappeared around the corner, Laya turned her head to him a little bit, and raised an eyebrow, smiling.

Rachel emerged before Laya, who was wearing a tight black tube top and a short pleated black skirt. A gold band was wrapped around her bicep, and a knife handle showed from the top of her thigh-high black leather boots that clung to every smooth dip in her long dancer's legs. Black suspenders wrapped over her shoulders, attached to her belt slung over the shirt, and had holsters on either side, another on the large black belt, next to some pouches filled with ammo. All the holsters were filled.

Wandering his gaze to hers, Leon also noticed Laya's bright green eyes contrasting with the blue eye-shadow spread over her eyes. She was giving him the same look she had while leaving the room. One eyebrow raised, her pretty red lips pulled into a smile.

"Let's go, I'm ready if you are." She said to them.

"You coming Rach?" Claire asked the pretty lavender-eyed girl.

"Sure, why not, you guys are the main characters, you need comic relief." She grinned at the three staring at her.

"Rachel watches too many movies and ran into a wall when she was two."Laya explained to Leon and Claire, who were staring at Rachel like she was insane. This was a distinct possibility at this point.

"Obviously." Leon commented.

Laya smiled, but a split second later her expression grew serious.

"How are we getting out? We can't go the way we came in, and the other side of the building is another building attached, but their cut off completely from one another. So, we have to go through the main entrance, or the fire escape is it."

"Why not the main entrance, it shouldn't be to bad."Claire asked.

"Because a family of six lived on the ground floor, and none of them have retained humanity. I already tried to escape, and, they're slow, so I tried to out run them and tripped. I fell on some broken glass; it totally ripped my leg up. I bled all over the floor while trying to escape back up here. They aren't going anywhere outside anytime soon. This was yesterday." Rachel revealed.

"Are you okay?" Laya asked, and when Rach nodded her head, Laya continued, "I think we have enough bullets if we go, but I don't know about how many will be outside. Any hypothesis?" she addressed Leon and Claire.

"No idea, the amounts change so quickly,…"Claire offered.

"Same here, when we were there earlier, there were only a few, but with seeing us and making such a fuss, I don't know what to expect."Leon was shaking his head as he answered her.

"Then lets find out shall we?" Laya smiled.


	2. Chapter 2

Okay, I'm not used to the whole third person POV, so I changed to Laya's 1st person. So…let's see what happens now. Disclaimer- I don't own ANY of Resident Evil, only Laya, Rachel and Taigun. Well, I do have RE 2 and 4,… ^^ Doesn't mean I own it. No matter how much I wish I yeah, Thank you so much Ethan56 for the gun info!!!

This was not what Rachel had described. This was not just a family of six. This was a family of at least a dozen.

"There were only six of them before!"Rachel cried out as we descended the last flight of stairs.

"Then they spawned." I muttered sarcastically.

After my optimistic "Let's go see" back in the apartment, we had discussed tactics while walking down two flights of stairs. Until we got here. Dozens of zombies swarmed around the main entrance of the apartment building. And all of them started toward us.

"I think I liked the fire escape situation better." I mumbled as I readied two of my handguns, Bretta M92Fs for the inevitable battle.

"I'll head back with you, seems that they all decided to head here anyway, we might get lucky and there aren't any back down there." Leon griped through his teeth, as aggravated as I was.

"They didn't decide anything, besides, they're slow. We don't have to shoot all of them." Claire scolded a little.

"Whatever let's just start the inevitable bloodbath already." I consented, and lifted my right hand to the nearest zombie, pulling the trigger and shooting the infected brunette straight between the eyes, spattering more blood onto the floor.

Then all hell broke out. The zombies started moving a little faster as we humans started moving into the room, off the staircase. We started spreading out, and blood sprayed as we shot the undead in the head. Making our way, I was paying attention to where the zombies were, not what was in the way of my feet, I tripped over a fallen chair. Landing on my side, a zombie I had been about to shoot lunged, completely in range to bite me, which would be horrible. I rolled to my feet, but before I could get my gun up, Leon shot the stupid thing. The zombie fell, blood spattering the it's neck and back. Leon, as he was across the room, called to me "Laya, are you okay?" over the gunshots. I called back something reassuring, and rolled in a somersault, away from an undead blonde, and facing one gun towards the zombie, the other in front of me, I shot simultaneously. Killing two more, I stood up and ran, shouting to the others to do the same. They followed my advice, and within seconds we were all outside the building.

"Are you okay?" Leon asked again, Claire's face was asking the same question.

"Yes, no bites and no scratches. I'm fine." At least Rachel didn't look worried about me.

Claire looked at me like she didn't want to believe me. So I asked her if she wanted to look over me herself.

"No, I'm sure that won't be necessary." She answered with a smile.

"I'm sure it won't. Anyway, now what, where are we going?"

Before anyone could answer, a scream came from our left. I ran before the others could get moving. I heard Leon mutter something about one thing after another, more and more people, but I ignored him and ran to help what sounded like a young girl.

Rounding a corner, I saw a blonde, no more than 14, kicking a zombie in the groin. I raised my gun and fired at his head, running to her. Once next to her, I asked if she was okay.

"I think so…" she told me, her brown eyes glowed.

"Have you been bitten?" I asked her, completely intent on my question's answer. I was gripping her arms tightly and she squirmed out of my grip.

"No." she answered testily, recovering a little from her traumatic experience with the undead.

By now Leon and the others had caught up Claire was smart. She asked the perfect, less scary questions.

"What's your name?" the girl hesitated, then answered.

"Taigun." She muttered.

"Tray-gun?" Rachel asked her, not hearing her correctly due to the young girl's quiet voice.

"Tay-gun!"She nearly shouted.

"Pretty." My cousin commented, amused and surprised at Taigun's anger.

"Okay, Taigun, we need to go. Do you want to come with us?" I asked hurriedly. Leon noticed my tone and glanced around the alley, and when he looked at me, confused, I mouthed "their coming" and said again, "We need to go." So they all could hear me. They did the same as he had, then Taigun said, "Let's go!"

Now it was my turn to look at her funny. She had the same tone as I had had. I wondered why, I was sure that no one could hear as far as I did. So why was she so worried? Was she injected with my virus as well? I didn't try to answer to myself. I ran instead. Heading the opposite way of the incoming zombies, I could hear the other's footsteps behind me.

*switching to Leon*

I still wasn't sure why she freaked orhow she knew they were coming. We were in some abandoned street now, walking around. Claire had good-naturedly asked Laya about her past. She had stiffened, pausing briefly, then curtly answered she didn't remember most of it, and still wasn't sure why. But for some reason she was royally pissed off about Claire's asking her.

"You don't remember your past, and you don't know why?" I asked her, an eyebrow raised cynically.

Her response was astronomical. She whirled, her eyes flat and cold. One of her Bretta M92Fs raised to my throat, her finger on the trigger.

"Listen carefully to what I say Mr. Kennedy. I don't like to repeat myself. At nine my parents where murdered. I was kidnapped. I do not remember what happened. I remember waking up at a hospital. By then I was ten. The rest is not of your business." She had spoken slowly, pronunciation as if teaching a child. She lowered the gun.

"Laya!" Rachel exclaimed, upset by her cousin's reaction.

Laya's eyes widened, life and light returning to the emerald depths.

"I'm so sorry Leon! I just… I can't remember, and it _bothers_ me, I get so… I'm sorry!"Her eyes trailed off, her apology written so deeply in her face she looked about ot cry. She stared for a moment, and Taigun's tentative voice asked gently, "Laya, are you okay?" after a minute of her disturbed silence.

Her head jerked at her name, and exclaimed "Umbrella!" without thinking.

We stared at her for a second, and she muttered, "Yeah, I'm fine, the stress is getting to me."

"Stress never gets to you though." Rachel contradicted.

"I know, I'm not myself right now. Let's get moving." She murmured awkwardly.

We continued down the road, and she fell in step beside me.

"I'm sorry Leon, but my past is very… mysterious, even to myself. I get flashes, like I did a minute ago, and I get so angry when people ask, because they can brag about boring, life with mom and dad childhoods, and the best I can come up with is amnesia ruled life with _step_mom _step_dad and _step_sister. I don't have a happy past, I can feel it. I just get so guilty, like there was something I could have done so I could have kept my mom and dad. So I'm really sorry that I pointed my gun at you, yelled at you, and was a complete ass."

"What did you mean by Umbrella?" I asked, trying to change subjects.

"I meant… nothing, I didn't mean anything."

But for some reason, I knew that she was lying. Also, I couldn't help but wonder, what the hell just happened?


	3. Chapter 3

**YAY!! I've made it to chapter three!!!! ^^ Also, thanks to some reviews, I figured out how to add chapters! YAY!!! Anyway, I am planning to become more organized, and lengthen chapters. YAY!! GOALS!!! Here you are with Chapter three, will start with a memory of Laya's. **

_My mother's blood spattered onto me, the black suited man's knife flashed in the lights of my room. A red and white symbol on the sleeve caught my eye, but I was too frightened to do more than notice it, I didn't see the shape or the pattern. My mother's scream caused me to shriek myself, my body shuddering more than a leaf on a windy day._

_My father shouted, but I couldn't hear, or I don't remember what it was. _

_My mother fell on the floor beside where I was sitting, blood leisurely flowing down her neck, free to do what it wanted, when I was a slave to my own terror, in agony of seeing my beloved mother's blood pooling next to her lifeless green eyes. I murmured "momma" and crawled next to her, tears falling from my eyes. Father stepped in front of me, though blood was dripping off of his arms, he didn't cry out, flinch or even look hindered by the gashes on him. This is dream needs to end, but I see my dad falling next to mom as dead as she is. One of the black-suited men picked me up, and I screamed and shouted, but he didn't let me go. _

_Even though I was nine when I last saw them, I couldn't remember much about my parents. My mother was gorgeous, with wavy blonde hair, and bright green eyes, much like my own, and dad had my hair, and gold eyes. But that was it. Nothing more. _

I was crying when I woke up. We had broken into another house, this time to rest. I had talked to Leon, and we both thought it way to quiet. He was on "sentry duty" now, keeping eye and ear open for zombies, or something worse...

Knowing I wouldn't be able to sleep (or want to sleep) and wiping away tears, I went to sit beside him.

"I'm sorry for pointing my gun at you Leon. That was inexcusable behavior. I owe you so much now."

"There is only one thing I want." He answered, then looked into my eyes. Strange, I hadn't thought of him as that kind of guy. He noticed my expression.

"No! I meant I wanted to know more about your past, that's what I want, not _that_." He looked like he was blushing, and I decided to play with him.

"Would it be that bad?"I asked him coyly, my voice lowering seductively. He rolled his eyes, seeing through me.

"You don't want it either. Now, your past?" Leon was smart, but could I be smarter?

"Maybe I do. Maybe it's all I can think about. Maybe you're lying." I whispered. He stared for a moment, and then shook his head.

"You're good Laya, but you said it yourself that you owe me. _This_ is what I want. What's your past that you so fervently want to hide it?" He saw through me again, which was a major turn-on for no reason.

"Fine,"I sighed, giving up." Do you want to know what I remember?"

"Yes."

I took a deep breath.

"I don't remember my parents' names. Is that strange? Anyway, I remembered on the street that they worked for Umbrella." I said the name with such hate, it was a physical thing. We could feel it in the air, infecting the air. Quickly calming myself, I started again.

"Umbrella wanted me for experimentation. My parents refused. After three tries, Umbrella took me by force. They stormed my house, three men, with nothing but knives. They planned to torture an agreement out of my parents. But still, they refused, and after hours of torture they finally killed my parents and took me to a research facility. Here, in Raccoon city."

He stared at me, horrified. "They… tortured your family?"

I looked at him flatly. "Yes, right in front of me. Then, at the facility, they injected me with something. But I don't remember what. Some kind of something."

I was lying now. I knew it was a virus of sorts, but I didn't want Leon to know more than he needed to. He already knew more than Rachel.

"I think I can understand your reaction now. You're hard to read Laya, one minute you're flirting up the wall, the next you have a gun in my face."

"I don't have too much control over my reactions when I'm upset." I blurted it out suddenly. I didn't want him to know that. I jerked my head up, staring at him, analyzing his reaction carefully.

"Explain." He ordered.

"When I'm upset or angry, I just react. I don't really control what I' doing, like someone else is pulling the strings of my body, my marionette self jerking in reaction to someone else's wishes. I hate it."

"No control? At all?" he asked.

"Not much. If I'm not real upset, I can curb the worse actions, but if I'm furious or on the verge of tears, then there's no hope." I clarified.

He stared at me for a long time. I stared back. I raised my eyebrow.

"Now's about where we lean forward, right?"He laughed, and the developing tension dissolved. He smiled at me. His face was perfect when he smiled. It made him even more attractive than he already was. I grinned back.

"I think so, but I think we should pass." He answered, still smiling slightly.

"I agree." I sighed.

"Though it might be nice..." I grinned devilishly, trailing off suggestively.

"It might." He agreed quietly.

My smile faded slowly, melding into one of amusement, instead of mischief.

We both were quiet, thinking. My mind wandered over what I remembered in my sleep, and I absentmindedly wiped the remaining tears away as I recovered from reliving my parents' death.

"Are you okay?" he asked me, noticing my hand reaching to my eye.

"Yeah, I'm fine Leon." I nodded at the end of my sentence.

When my head fell towards my chest during my nod, my eyes flew open as pain racked my chest. I gasped, coughing and choking on the waves of torment rolling through my heart and chest. My lungs constricted and even coughing was cut off, leaving me helpless and unable to breathe anything. I took no notice of Leon, and had no idea what his reaction was, intent on breathing. Nothing was working. I couldn't gasp, breath, cough. Nothing was possible for me, and my vision started blurring, blacking in spots as the flow of oxygen in my blood was cut off, leaving my brain un-oxygenated. I blacked out a moment later.

*Leon now*

Laya blacked out, and she simply stopped doing anything, her body lying deathly still on the ground. I shouted her name, waking Rachel, Claire and Taigun.

"MOVE!" Rachel shouted, shoving me out of the way. She pulled a syringe out of one of Laya's pouches, and filled it from a vial of nasty puce liquid. She injected the stuff into Laya's neck, her jugular.

A moment later, she seized and then fell still again. Claire and Taigun sat still, waiting for something to happen. I quickly asked Rachel what it was.

"She told you she was injected, right?"

"Yes."

"This helps counter the injection she got then."

"Counter what?"

"Shut up, she's breathing."

I looked and saw she was. She looked peaceful now, not pained like she had moments ago. Her eyes flickered open.

"Dammit." She whispered, and her throat convulsed, her hand flying up to cover her mouth.

"Are you okay?" Rachel asked.

"Hell no." she muttered as she swallowed.

Rachel smiled, and the rest of us stared, confused.

"I'll be okay, don't worry." Laya said, "This doesn't happen often."

She sat up, wincing a little.

"What just happened?" Taigun asked hesitantly.

"I was a guinea pig for Umbrella for awhile." Laya croaked weakly " They put some nasty stuff in me that's taking affect now. The stuff Rach injected me with counters the negative affects of the nasty stuff." Laya was avoiding the question a little, telling only the bare essentials.

"So, what does this nasty stuff do?" Claire questioned.

"It allows me to have unnaturally good senses, but at the same time is slowly killing me. I get attacks like this periodically, and they hurt like hell, resulting in my blacking out, but usually I get the counter into my self first. The virus they gave me is designed to kill brain cells until the victim is reduced to a blubbering mess. It didn't come into effect in me until later, about four years."

"A virus?" I asked.

"Yes, it's a virus I'm sorry I lied to you, but I didn't want you to know too much." Laya looked down, her voice rough as she explained this to me.

"Can you walk?" Tiagun asked, continuing quickly "'Cuz their coming."

Laya listened for a moment then nodded. Standing up, she drew her 9mms.

"Let's go." She sighed.

With that we readied ourselves for the looming bloodshed in the depth of a nightmare enshrouded Raccoon City.

**Ugh -.- it was supposed to be longer. Oh well, I'll work hard next chapter as well, and try to go in depth with whats going on inside Laya, Leon, Rachel, Tiagun, and Claire. Enjoy and review if you have any questions, comments, or suggestions. Thank you!! ^^ **

**Thank you for all the wonderful help and suggestions!!**


	4. Scouting mission

**This chapter is a little interesting. It took me awhile to think up. Please read and respond! ^^ Thank you!  
**

We were back on the streets of Raccoon city, and a bitter tang was forever present in my throat. I didn't recognize it. The emotion was strong in my mouth and mind, but I couldn't identify it for the life of me. Not that it was worth very much anyways.

"So, Taigun, how did you hear those zombies?" Rachel inquired, and I looked towards the girl, curious as well.

"It doesn't matter to _you_." She shot nastily to my cousin.

"It might. You could have something worse than Laya and be a danger to us all!" Rachel shouted, her temper snapping.

The two had been going at it since Taigun joined our little party. They couldn't stop. But Rachel's last comment pissed me off.

"Worse than me?" I asked calmly, though the tang in my mouth was receding, making way for the hot anger engulfing my body. "Rachel, do you know the extent of my virus? What it will cause to me?"

I have a temper, and my virus is a sensitive spot.

"No Laya, I don't know the extent of your disease."my cousin replied cruelly "So tell us what you are going through. Make it so we know what we are risking our lives for." Rachel was shouting now. "Did you realize that Laya? That, if you have an attack in the middle of a fight, we could die trying to save you? Or were you too caught up in your own misery to think of it?" She had never shouted at me before, and her words sent shock and pain into my body. My face crumpled, revealing my hurt.

"Rachel, what's wrong?" I asked quietly. The anger had left, and I was cold with my fear. Fear... the name of the tang in my throat. The one thing I hated more than Umbrella, and yet now it was my friend. Now it comforted me, and whispered that I was human, which I hadn't felt in a long time.

"You Laya! You are what is wrong! You think of yourself and nothing else! Even with zombies and _things_ running around, you think only of yourself!"

"I'm sorry." I whispered painfully, tears in my eyes as I absorbed her hateful words. Taigun, Claire and Leon were all staring now. "I am a burden, so I will leave. Taking a shaky breath, the tears spilling over, I turned and walked away.

"No, you are not." A hand wrapped around my wrist. I knew the voice, but turned my head around anyway. Leon was glaring at me, his determination bright in his eyes.

"Let go." I whispered. When he started dragging me towards the others, I twisted to get out of his grasp, but Rachel approached me before I succeeded. She wrapped her arms around me, hugging me tight.

"I'm sorry Laya! I didn't mean it! I snapped, but you're not a burden. I love you Laya, and I am so sorry." I embraced her, accepting her obviously sincere apology, and she started crying into my shoulder. I pushed her back so I could look at her, my tears dried.

"Let's get out of here before I have another attack okay? Let's leave this apocalyptic hellhole!" Turning my attention to the others, I asked, "Agree?"

Leon and Claire smiled at me. Leon nodded, and Claire answered "Sounds good to me." Taigun smiled back, "Oh, I don't know, I kind of liked it here." She said sarcastically.

So we continued on to find the edges of the nightmarish Raccoon City, but a nagging feeling dragged at me, whispering to me that something wasn't right. We hadn't seen anything since we escaped our last rest point, and it was silent now. Where were the zombies?

A slight noise pricked the edges of my hearing, from in front of us. My fear increased as the sound did. I still couldn't recognize it though, still to faint. I stopped walking, cocking my head to listen.

"Stay here." I told the others, and then started jogging towards it. Footsteps followed me, and Leon appeared, predictably, at my side.

"What do you hear?" he asked me quietly.

"I'm still not sure." And I started running faster. He increased speed with me, matching me pace for pace. Usually I would have been pleased, but right now, I was trying to control my growing dread, for I was starting to realize what the sound was.

A horde of zombies was moving toward us.

Stretching my legs, I increased speed, racing to see if I was wrong, and hoping with all I had I wasn't. Leon was beside me until now. He started falling behind as I used my extra strength, which failed me when I got about 30 yards ahead. Terror weakened my legs, and I fell to my knees when I heard the moans of the undead clearly.

"Damn it all." I was whispering when Leon finally caught up.

"What is it?" he gasped.

"Too many to fight, way too many to fight." I sighed, defeated.

"So we have to out run them." He said flatly. I looked up at him with raised eyebrows, cynical.

"Run to where Leon? We don't know where the edge of the city is."

"We keep running until we're out. They can't chase us forever, can they?" he responded.

"Leon, that's putting Claire, Rachel and Taigun in danger, do you really want to do that?" I was hopeless there was nothing we could do. Except…Whispering, I proposed my suggestion.

"I can leave, and lead them away."

"No, you won't. At least not alone Laya, I won't let you do it. I'll come too."

"No! Then I'll be risking _your _life too." And then, whispering, I added "and I'd never forgive myself if I got you killed."

He put his hand on my shoulder and squatted down to meet my eyes. "Hey. If I'm killed, it's my fault, I want to do this." then he remembered the others. "We can't split up with them though..." he muttered.

I didnt want him to go, but I always had a problem with being alone, and this new task scared the hell out of me, driving me to extremes in my fear of aloneness.

"Rachel is excellent at fighting. We kind of fell in with the wrong crowd in middle school, gangsters and such. She got really good at fighting, and with a gun in her hand she's unstoppable. As long as theyre not alone too long, they'll be fine. Besides, I dont think Taigun's normal. I think she' like me."

I had taken away my last argument against his coming with me. He would come whether I liked it or not.

We ran back to the others. I knew what I was going to say. I was going to lie.

"I'm still not sure what it was, Leon and I are going to go look, but it may take awhile. Go ahead and keep moving. We'll catch up later. Okay?"

Rachel looked dissatisfied and unhappy, but Claire and Taigun didn't suspect anything. Turning, Leon and I left again to face impossible odds.

We ran until out of sight of the others, then walked. Leon was close to my side, which comforted me, and I started to calm down as I listened to his heart, my terror fading as I started to plan what we could do.

"Leon, how about…" and we started discussing possible strategies for facing them and still surviving.

We decided on a plan that was, at this point, to see what we were up against, then re-discuss. Intricate, right?

About ten minutes later, we knew we were getting close. Leon could hear them, which wasn't unbelievable really, the zombies were pretty loud.

"Remember the plan?" Leon asked me seriously, looking at me hard.

"Of course, we came up with it a minute ago Leon." I sounded kind of annoyed, and felt guilty because of it. I instantly regretted it. "Sorry, I'm scared that's all." I apologized to him.

"Its fine, I am too." I started at his words, for some reason it never hit me that he could be scared too. He seemed so calm all the time; I hadn't realized that all of us were scared. Suddenly Rachel's words didn't seem too far off from the truth, maybe I was a self-centered bitch.

We were standing still, a little less than a foot away from each other. Taking a deep breath, I took a step so I was in front of him. "Leon, we aren't that far now. I want you to promise me something." I waited for his answer, staring seriously into his eyes. He nodded.

"Okay Laya." Wow, my name sounded good in his dark voice, and I paused for a moment, etching it into my memory. Wait, why was I doing that? Did I care _that_ much?

"Leon, if I have an attack while were leading them away,-" I didn't get a chance to finish, he cut me off.

"That won't-"

I interrupted back, my voice sharp, "_Listen please _Leon! If I have an attack, you can't risk yourself to try to inject me okay? Promise me Leon!"

"How are you going to do that? Doesnt Rachel have your serum?"

"Of course not. Meeting her was unexpected. Its right here. Back to my question, do you promise?" I pointed to one of my pouches on my belt as I spoke.

He stared at me for a moment, then with dark, heavy blue eyes he nodded.

I sighed, relieved that he at least wouldn't die because of my problem. Because if he was turned into a zombie, I wouldn't have the strength to kill him. I felt a growing affection for the cop.

I tured and started walking. "Will that be tall enough?" I asked him, pointing the tallest building in the immediate area, about five stories.

"Should be." he answered.

" Then let's go." I opened the door to the old hotel.

Inside was disturbingly dark and extensively creepy. Rubble littered the lobby, and dead fish were next to a blood-stained counter. We decided to climb to the top floor, as I refused to trust the elevator. We quickly got to the stairs, nothing much to see in the abandoned hallways but litter, dust and the occasional potted plant lying on the floor. I was tired, and ready to sit down by the time we reached the roof.

On the roof, I was completely unprepared for the sight that befell me. Bits of bodies and a sea of drying blood encrusted the roof. Zombies were leaning over a cadaver, feasting on the flesh. One turned and noticed us. I shuddered violently, even though our lives weren't safe. I turned away from the mess and retched off the side of the building as Leon took care of the undead. He shot the corpse for good measure.

When he finished, he held my hair away from my face for a moment, though I was finished. I wiped my mouth and whispered hoarsely "I'm okay."

I knew that he realized it was a lie, so I switched subjects.

"Lets scout shall we?"

"Where are they?" he asked, for though his ears could roughly hear the march of the undead, they couldnt pinpoint the direction of the sound. So I walked to the east side of the building, and looked. It wasnt that hard to spot them. We were on the tallest building for a little ways and could see over the others. We had gotten closer than I thought. I sighed heavily, then turned to him.

"There is way to many. We wont be able to fight them, unless we can somehow snipe most with a few handguns."

"So what do you suggest we do?" his face was grave. He realized the seriousness of the situation.

"Scour the building, and try to find a rifle quickly I guess. If we dont have any luck, we take out as many as we can, then run like hell." he contemplated it for a moment. I noticed the dull fear in his eyes, and knew it was reflected in my own green ones.

"Lets look then." he decided. I smiled through my terror, wondering what would happen next.

**Finished. Was it okay? Better than the last chapter? Please tell me what you thought, as I am anxious for my reader's views. I know that wasnt much of an ending, but this is a really long chapter! Thanks to those who have read my fanfic this far! I hope you stay! ^^**


	5. Sniping the undead

**On to chapter five. Disclaimer: I don't own Resident Evil. **

I had only been this scared once. When I was kidnapped, and that was twelve years ago. Now, as I walked through hotel rooms, scouring for useful items and disposing of the occasional zombie, I felt my terror grow at the ever-present thought of our upcoming battle.

My hair fell in my face as looked at the corpse of a young girl I had just re-killed. She couldn't be more than ten, and it was such a waste of life. Horrified, I continued my search.

Leon and I met up again on the ground floor. We had split up to cut time. Our finds were meager, but there was one treasure amongst it: A .22 caliber rifle with 24 bullets. That was about 24 dead zombies in my book. I was a pretty good sniper.

The rest was just handgun ammo and some aspirin. Why I grabbed that I have no idea. I threw the aspirin in one of my pouches and we divided the ammo, which I put into a separate pouch hanging from my belt.

"Ready?" Leon asked me a moment later.

"Ready for what, committing suicide? Yeah sure, but anything else, I'm not so sure." I looked him straight in the eye; my tone was blunt and sarcastic. He rolled his eyes at me, annoyed. I just shrugged in the place of an apology.

"Let's go if we're going to do this." I sighed at him. He looked at me for a moment, then asked, "Are you sure you're okay Laya?"

"Yes of course. I'm always more than prepared to sacrifice myself." I smiled without mirth, then turned to walk back up the dirty carpeted stairs of the hotel, where we had decided to try and snipe some zombies. He grabbed my arm and turned me towards him.

"Don't be an ass just because you're scared Laya." His voice was hard, and his eyes matched. I wrenched my arm out of his grip.

"I'm sorry Leon. I just wish I knew what was happening before I made my decisions." I knew my voice sounded defeated, but I was feeling rather defeated anyways, so what did it matter?

"I know, but that would cost time, and time is what we can't waste." He spoke to me gently, realizing my fragile state of mind the fear had driven me to. I took a deep breath and released it slowly. When it was out of my lungs I nodded to him, regaining myself and capturing my calm back from my fear that had held it captive.

"I realize that." I said "So I know better than to think before I do what I'm doing." I grinned at him, and then proceeded to walk up the last of the stairs, muttering "thinking, who needs that?" just loud enough for him to hear.

Before I opened the door to the roof, I took a deep breath and readied myself for the gory, bloody mess I knew waited for me. I didn't throw up this time, but my nose wrinkled in disgust, and I was still horrified by the sight of multiple dead bodies, torn with blood oozing from their open wounds. I carefully picked my way through the macabre scene, my eyes scrunched in disgust.

When I reach the edge, I raise the rifle to my face and start tracking down the approaching horde.

But when I saw the first in the group, I gagged in my mouth. Half his face was missing, leaving a bloody mess where his left eye and nose should be. I shot what was remaining of his face as soon as I regained my composure. Then I started to pick off those that I could.

"May I." Leon had his hand extended to the gun, so I passed it to him . The zombies were disgusting, and he picked them off faster than I could.

I stared at him as he worked quickly and carefully on disposing of zombies. He was skilled with guns, that much was more than obvious. I sighed deeply, suddenly tired of everything.

I started walking around as I waited impatiently. I was worried about Rachel, Taigun, and Claire. Were they still okay? Could they really stay alive by themselves? I knew Rachel was an astronomical fighter, but what if something did happen to her? Would Claire and Taigun be okay? Would they be able to stay alive?

The stop of gunshots brought my attention back to the world. Leon stood up, resting the gun on the low wall surrounding the edge of the roof.

"Out of bullets." He looked at me. "Ready to go kill zombies up close?" he asked me, his face serious, and slightly resigned, reflecting my own loathing for what we were about to do. They were so…human. The zombies just didn't seem like zombies, which made them hard to kill.

"Yeah, I guess." I looked down at the gore beneath my feet. "Ugh." I muttered as I dully kicked away a bloody finger. Then I turned and started for the stairs leading to the rest of the hotel.

I pulled open the door slowly; my ears straining to make sure it was safe. When the door was open, I drew my gun, and pointed it to the opening. Walking down slowly, Leon followed, his gun raised too. He glanced at me curiously, wondering about my caution. I shook my head silently to him, mentally sending him the message "not now" and of course he couldn't hear it, but he acted like he knew what was on my mind, though it was obvious.

I shook my head, ridding myself of incoherent thoughts. That didn't matter, and neither did the way his hair fell into his eyes, making him look ridiculously attractive in the dim light, with his gun raised and ready…DIDN'T MATTER!! I shook my head again and looked away, focusing on what was bothering me, though I didn't know what it was.

I paid closer attention to my surroundings, and every little sound was worth me jumping and flinging my gun in the direction of it. What was bothering me so much? I felt the presence of something I needed to kill. Or else the virus was killing my senses, which would suck even more.

It was about when this thought consumed me when I felt the wet, warm tongue on the back of my neck. I shuddered involuntarily, and spun away, looking to the ceiling.

There perched a pink thing, with its brains visible and a huge tongue, which rotated in a slow circle in the air, about a foot above its head. Then it sprung straight towards me without any warning.

I screamed, but shot it right before it landed on me. Leon shouted my name, and started firing at it.

I cried out in pain when its claw sunk into my arm.

"Laya!" Leon shouted, and there was a pause in his shots.

I was barely able to keep a hand on its throat, pushing it away from my own, which it was vigorously trying to attack. Grunting, I shoved hard, and it leaped off me, back onto a wall. The thing tried to lunge again, but I was ready, and fired more rounds into its visible brain.

It fell off the wall, mid way between me and Leon, and lay still. I looked at it, then cautiously took a step forward and nudged it with my toe. It didn't move.

"Are you okay?" he was staring at my right arm, where the claw had ripped my flesh. The wound was too smeared with blood to see.

"I think so. You?" he nodded, then stepped around the thing to look at my arm. He gently grasped it with his hands, and then rotated it from side to side, trying to find the wound. He wiped away some of the fresh blood. Rotated it more.

"I was sure you were wounded." He muttered, frantically searching for an open wound.

"I was." I murmured.

"What do you mean 'was'?" he asked slowly, cautiously.

"Let's go, we have zombies to kill. We don't know if that thing has buddies." I jerked my arm out of his grasp, and shoving my guns in their holsters, ran down the last of the stairs, my feeling of suspicion gone now the thing was dead. Leon stayed behind me as we ran to the position of the zombies. We both stayed quiet.

It was his silence that bothered me. I wasn't sure what he thought of me now that he knew I could regenerate external wounds. What was to happen now?

Since I didnt want to think about the unpleasant options, I kept running on towards our suicide.


	6. The Horde

**Sorry this chapter didn't come out sooner. I couldn't think of anything for awhile.**

**Disclaimer-I don't own Resident Evil or Leon, Claire, or the T-Virus. All that's Capcom's. I only own Laya, Rachel, Taigun, and the plot of this fanfic. **

It's horrible, knowing that you're going to die. But it's worse not knowing when.

I mean, we all know we're going to die, and we don't know when, but knowing that you have to worry about it? Knowing it's soon, but not knowing when, how soon? It's worse.

I was told three months ago that I wasn't going to live to thirty. I'm 21 at the moment, and now I probably won't live to 22 because of the stupid ass zombies loose in Raccoon City.

In the back of my head I started remembering the visit to the doctor that had told me of the possibility of my shortened life span.

I had walked in complaining of being lightheaded and fatigued, with rapid breathing when I've done nothing to provoke it and nausea. He performed a few tests, sent blood to a lab, and told me to wait. After my blood returned, he decided that, though 21, I probably wouldn't make it to thirty.

With these morbid memories in my head, I started thinking. Why was I so worried? If I died here, then I was only cutting off nine years, and that wasn't all that much. I was going to die soon, plain and simple. Did it matter if it was here or in nine years? My life was fairly pointless anyway. I saw no reason for it at least, so why was I so worried?

Strangely enough, since my life no longer mattered to me, I was no longer scared for me, but for Leon and the others. A new spring entered my step, and I was no longer running to our death, but running to save the others. It really added to my enthusiasm to think that I no longer mattered, and that they were worth more. I could only see the truth of it, and so nothing else really mattered.

We were approaching them. Just around the next corner, and we would see the extent of their numbers. I glanced at Leon's tense face. We slowed just before the corner, and I pushed my back against the cold concrete wall. Leon mirrored my actions, and I slowly drew my guns out of their holsters. Edging quietly towards the edge of the wall my back was against, I tried to pinpoint their numbers by sound. It was too noisy, all their shuffling and moaning made it impossible to hear anything in particular.

So I hopped around the corner, my guns pointed towards the horde of bloody bodies.

That was when the shooting began. Leon followed me, and we both continuously shot at them. There were about 25, maybe more. I rhythmically shot at them, but it was hard work which grew harder the more I focused. The zombies just looked…human. I didn't know them. I couldn't say they had done wrong because I didn't know, and that made it harder to aim and pull the trigger. For all I knew, I was killing innocent people.

But my imagination suddenly shot to a scene that I dreaded, and I saw Rachel, Claire and Taigun getting attacked. Rachel was shooting at one, but it advanced, undeterred by her useless chest shots. Taigun screamed when a fat police officer fell on her, sinking his teeth into her soft skin. Claire shouted and tried to help, but was soon overcome by another zombie, too absorbed in self-preservation to help Rachel and Taigun. Rachel soon fell beneath the approaching dead, Claire close behind her. My mind skipped ahead and I saw the three rise, their eyes pale blue, skin white with blood flowing from their wounds.

The scene changed again, and instead, I saw Leon in my imagination. He was fighting off a zombie with his empty gun, beating it on the things head. It didn't do anything though, and the undead fell upon him, sinking its imaginary teeth into his imaginary throat, cutting open his jugular. Blood flowed down his blue R.P.D uniform in my head, making it appear purple. The zombie dropped him, no longer caring about my friend, since the police officer was dead. A moment or two later, Leon rose slowly; his dark blue eyes had paled. He moaned in my mind, and slowly dragged his feet in a shuffling step meant to carry him to his prey.

That did it. I no longer cared how human they looked. They could hurt and kill those that meant the most to me, and new friends that I cared about. I would kill them.

My gunshots rang in intervals with Leon's and when both of my guns were empty of bullets, I shoved them back into my holsters. I had killed about ten, and Leon had disposed of roughly the same (for which I was grateful in the back of my mind-I wouldn't have ever been able to defeat them by myself). But there were still about ten advancing towards us.

A hot rage replaced trepidation in my throat. I leaped over the small wall of flesh and the river of coagulating blood that we had created. Landing on a body, I pushed off for momentum, and when I landed again, it was in a small puddle of blood, which sprayed up onto my boots, coloring the black material with crimson speckles. I barely noticed, for my focus was intent on the bloody man in front of me, his arm dangling by some skin and thin muscle. Without thinking, I grabbed his lower jaw and the back of his head and quickly wrenched it to the side, severing his spinal cord. He fell, and didn't rise. I reached for the next one. I hadn't been paying attention though in my fury and woman that was nearby lunged at my arm, ready to sink her teeth into my flesh.

A sharp tug on the neckline of my shirt pulled me out of the line of her teeth. Leon's face appeared next to mine as he pulled me back from the zombie.

"Don't be reckless Laya." He growled harshly, pointing his gun at the thing's face. He killed it, covering me as I re-loaded my own. We disposed of the others quickly between the two of us, but Leon had killed the most, and for that I had to thank him. If I had gone by myself as I originally planned, I would be dead. Even though I didn't care about my life, I wanted to see Rachel get through this. I had to see all of them get through this nightmare.

**Don't worry; they'll all meet up again soon. Sorry it took me so long to finish this, I've been busy.**


	7. I'm so sorry

**Okay, there's not an excuse for why this has taken so very, very long. I'm sooo sorry for all who actually care! : But…It's here now, so… enjoy! 3**

**Disclaimer- I don't own Claire or Leon, or Resident Evil, Umbrella or the zombies. **

I sighed. "You're lost." I accused Leon, who glared at me, clenching his teeth. "No I'm not Laya. Stop accusing me of these things. I know you're worried about Rachel, Taigun and Claire, but there's nothing that I can do about it, so stop complaining!" he growled angrily, then turned away and continued walking through the desolate buildings on both sides of them. I glared at the ground. He had hit the reason for my impatience perfectly. I exhaled loudly, angrily, from between clenched teeth. This was annoying, not knowing the condition of my sister, and the other girls with her.

Until now I had been fairly optimistic, but now that was leaving. I could feel my throat constricting with my terror and anger. Everything was suddenly pressing on me, and I knew I wouldn't handle it well. I would snap soon, do something I'd regret. I kept walking, my footsteps soft and almost inaudible. Leon was slightly louder, but not by much. His presence wasn't even comforting, it was annoying. I didn't like having people see me in such emotional turmoil. I tried to keep calm when in public. My unknown past terrorized me constantly here.

Shaking my head I desperately tried to clear it of my horrid, depressing thoughts. I kept my ears straining for anything, wanting nothing more than hear the sounds of Rachel, Taigun and Claire, and to hear that they were okay.

We kept walking, and I started to hear something. It wasn't loud, and I couldn't really hear it very well, but it sounded roughly like Leon's name…or mine. I started jogging, signaling to Leon to follow, then stopped dead, turning to something I could hear that was a lot closer. Shuffling and groaning. It was just another zombie.

I sighed, and motioned to Leon to just keep going, it was behind us anyway. We jogged on, and my stride lengthened with anxiousness as I realized that it was our names, and that they were being idiots enough to yell for us. I cursed their idiocy under my breath and started running at full tilt, Leon just behind me.

We raced past stores, zombies, apartments, the apocalyptic city in general. The shouting was getting louder, and I turned a sharp left…and stopped dead, Leon nearly running into me with the speed of my halt.

In front of me was Claire, holding a shotgun pointed at something a few feet taller than her at least. It was huge, with a mutated, gigantic arm which was poised to attack. Its head whipped toward us, and I realized that Taigun had been calling for help from us, the reason for the yelling. Claire looked terrified, Taigun even more so. Claire took the opportunity of its distraction to take semi-careful aim, and pulled the trigger.

The bullet entered the monster's right shoulder, the one I couldn't really see, and I heard Claire curse before the thing roared. It swiped its huge claws at Claire, who dove out of the way just in time, and was able to drag Taigun down with her. I jerked into action and ran towards Claire, sure that if I got the shotgun I'd be able to shoot it in the head, which, with any luck, would kill it. It turned toward me, noticing my advance, and raised its monstrous appendage. It roared, and I grunted, jumping as it swung the arm down. Leon and Claire both shouted my name, but I barely noticed, to intent on timing. I landed on top of the thing's arm and started running up its limb, noticing the huge, inhuman eye implanted on the shoulder just before it swung its arm, agitatedly trying to knock me off, successfully. I fell, but managed to extend one arm; catching on with my hand and dragging my body back up in a matter of a few seconds, running again. I jumped over the protrusion-like eye and pulled out the switchblade out of my boot. Claire shouted again, but I didn't notice, too involved in what I was doing. The blade seemed to plunge itself into the creature's head. It didn't seem real, like I wasn't in control of the knife.

It probably wasn't even possible.

The thing started to fall, and I jumped off, not sure what to do, but I didn't pay attention; I didn't see that its unearthly extremity was coming towards me. I saw Leon running at me, and Claire shouted, holding out a hand like she could push it away. I saw it then, out of the corner of my eye, and I saw as it collided with me. My foot had just touched the ground; I didn't have my balance yet. My arm reached towards Leon, who was reaching towards me as well, and he was gone. My sight caught the details of the buildings I flew past, and I could feel the wind blowing around me, chilling me to the bone, and I felt the bone-crushing impact as I crashed into a building at least twenty feet away, part of the wall crumbling from the force of my collision.

I barely registered a gunshot, and assumed that Claire was shooting the thing, making sure it was dead. A moment later, agony erupted through my bruised body, and I realized that I should've been grateful that no huge chunks of concrete fell on me.

I groaned, and felt weight removed from my body. I cracked one eye and saw Leon pulling chunks of building off of my stomach and right leg, which was the only part of me that anything really heavy fell on, and the hunk wasn't that heavy, my guess was about eight pounds. When the larger chunks (ranging from three to five pounds) were off, he picked me up. I shrieked in torture when my right leg moved, the mass had broken it. I groaned, and Leon's anxious voice was close to my ear when he asked, "Laya? What's hurt?"

I groaned in pain, his every movement shifting my broken lower limb, "It…broke my leg…" I panted my breathing heavy from the pain and exertion of running on top of a man-made creature.

Claire approached us then, Taigun her little shadow, and I gasped "Where's Rachel?"

Taigun burst into tears, and Claire's face fell. I groaned again, letting my head fall back over Leon's arm. "We weren't gone that long…how could…?" I moaned, even though I knew full well that every second counts in these situations. Tears gathered, but I refused to let them fall. It was pointless anyways, considering that we were still in Raccoon City, and Leon, Claire, and Taigun were still alive. They needed to be my first priority.

"I can't walk…" I realized suddenly, looking at my handicap with horror. Claire looked up, gaping, and Taigun stopped crying, looking at me as well. "My-my leg's broken…how…" I started stammering hysterically. I couldn't protect them if I couldn't move.

"Set me down." I ordered, unexpectedly calm again. He gaped at me.

"Laya… your legs broken. You screamed when I picked you up. You honestly don't think you can stand on it, do you?" he asked incredulously.

"I know I can't, but I have to try. Set me down." I ordered again.

"You're insane!" Taigun exclaimed, gaping at me widely.

"So? My sanity isn't the issue here Taigun. The fact that I can't rely on my sister anymore," she flinched, but I continued, "Means that I _have_ to be able to walk. Understand?" I spat angrily. She nodded numbly, but Leon interjected, "Wait, what do you mean have to. Claire and I are fully capable of taking care of ourselves. I'm a cop Laya!" he exclaimed, taking offense at my comment.

I sighed. "Leon, I am aware that you are a _rookie_ cop and that Claire knows how to handle a gun, but you and Claire aren't the only ones here." I indicated Taigun and myself. "I promised myself that I'd see you through this. I'd keep you alive no matter what it took." I explained calmly, and then added, "Now put me down." He glared, but did as I said, starting to gently set my legs on the ground.

I gasped when my leg touched the ground, being forced to support my weight. Pain ripped up my leg and I nearly fell over. My breathing increased again, and I automatically grabbed Leon's shoulder to steady myself. A second later I was back in his arms, glaring at him.

"I hadn't even taken a step!" I accused, furious with him for picking me up. He looked at me like I was insane. Maybe I was.

"You were planning to?" Claire asked dryly, and then added, "Come on, let's go. We've got company." Leon glanced over his shoulder and started jogging. I gritted my teeth, and then pointed at the body of the thing that I had just killed. "Wait! My knife! I need my knife!" I shouted. Taigun was the one who reacted. She nodded and veered off of our path. Her long blonde pigtails bounced as she ran, the hood of her orange sweater bouncing on her back. Leon stopped, turning and shouted "No, Taigun! Come back!" and I saw why.

There were dogs standing by the body of the thing. I hadn't noticed them because of their black fun, but I saw them now. I cursed myself, then gaped as the stupid girl kept running towards them. "Taigun! No! Don't, come back!" I screamed as Claire started running, pulling the shotgun off of her shoulder and starting to aim it at the dogs, who lunged.

I turned my face away, and heard three shots in quick succession just after an ear-piercing scream. I groaned, and then whispered, "Leon is she okay?"

I didn't take his lack of response as a yes. I groaned and opened my eyes, looking up at Leon's darkly handsome features. Claire approached us, and whispered, "Let's go. I…don't want…" I knew what she meant, even if she didn't finish her sentence. She didn't want to have to shoot Taigun. I nodded, feeling that my legs wouldn't hold me up, even if I tried walking.

Two. Two of five were dead within an hour of each other. I felt hollow in my chest. I had failed in my vow…twice. Now I had a broken leg, how was I supposed to even pretend to protect Leon and Claire like this? Why hadn't I heard the dogs…? I didn't realize I was crying until Leon whispered softly, so only I could hear, "Laya…we're gonna make it out of here, okay? Don't worry… you're gonna be okay." His voice was softer than I had heard it the entire time in Raccoon City. I looked up, my eyes accusing him angrily. "I'm pretty sure that someone said that when Rachel and Taigun were still alive. Now they're not… don't bother with the survival lies…Not all of us are making it out of here Leon." My voice was harsh, and sounded angry even to myself.

"Do you have a knife?" I asked suddenly a few moments later. He looked at me and nodded slowly, "Yeah…why would you need one?" he asked cautiously. "I have a theory. I heal, right? So maybe if I slice my leg open, it'll heal the break along with the external wound." I explained.

He gaped at me, and I sighed, realizing he probably wouldn't let me. "You're crazy Laya!" he exclaimed angrily. I nodded, and responded "Maybe, but my sanity isn't what's at stake here. I have to be able to walk. If there's a chance of it with this…I need to try Leon. Besides, even if it doesn't work, the cut will heal anyway, and it'll be like it never happened." She gestured at the boot, which was growing with her swollen leg. He frowned, and then sighed. "Let's get somewhere other than the middle of the street then. Somewhere more…secluded. He raised his head to talk to Claire. "Hey, Laya's had a brilliant idea. She's gonna cut open her leg and see if that'll heal the break. We need to get out of the middle of the road.

Claire looked over at us, her eyes wide with surprise as her reddish ponytail bounced around her head. "No. Laya, you're underwear's red." She added, discreetly letting me know that my skirt was being affected by gravity since Leon was holding me. I rolled my eyes, and Leon looked away from me. "Thanks Claire, that matters a lot in this situation. Can we please get going?"

"Laya, wounding yourself more isn't going to help!" she insisted angrily. I growled under my breath. "It might Claire." I responded. "Leon, put me down." I ordered calmly. He frowned, but I repeated my command before he could protest, my annoyance and suppressed grief making my tone sharper than necessary. He gently set my feet back on the ground, and I winced, a hand on his shoulder. I suddenly wished I hadn't given in to my flashy tendencies and had worn something a little more practical. My boots had crimson stains, as did my clothes and hair. The gold arm band wrapped around my bicep was coated in more blood than faux gold, and I knew that my green eyes were dark. In short, I looked like an extremely dangerous, maybe misfortunate slut. My chestnut hair was tangled hopelessly, but it was still possible that I looked powerful, even with a deformed, lumpy-looking leg, tangled hair and slutty clothes.

Claire sighed. "Laya, we need to go."

"Leon, give me the knife." I bent down and started to unzip the thigh-high boot. Leon gaped at me, and I glared back, but looked away as I winced, carefully unzipping around the swelling.

My leg was purple, dark purple, with blotches of different shades. It hurt like hell, and was swollen to almost double its size. I winced at the sight, unzipping the boot the rest of the way and pulling it off. "Leon, your knife." I asked. This time he numbly passed me a small switchblade. I flicked the blade out, and pressed the sharp tip into the swollen, discolored part of my leg. "Wait, don't!" Claire tried to stop me, reaching out, but I ripped the blade down to quickly, tearing my leg open. It refused to hold my weight now, and I started to fall. Blood splashed over the ground, my blood, staining the asphalt beneath our feet. It was warm, and ran down my ankle and foot, squished warm and wet between my toes, and I gasped at the pain that flared. It was harsh and burned like I had set my leg on fire. I had cut deep; I could see the ivory colored bone. I groaned, and Leon held me up, his arms around my waist. I leaned on him heavily, pain keeping me from thinking clearly.

After a few moments, blood pouring from the self-inflicted wound, the flow slowed, and started to slowly stop, until it altogether ceased. My leg was covered in blood, and there was a puddle of the crimson liquid surrounding it. The wound slowly, so very slowly, started to close itself. It was slow enough, if you just glanced you couldn't see, but if you watched, you noticed the skin pulling together, millimeter by millimeter. After about ten minutes, the pain had subsided to a dull aching that throbbed horrible in my leg, and I could hear something.

"Zombie…behind that café…" I grunted, indicating the café with a nod of my head. Claire readied her shotgun, and ran up to the café. "No!" I shouted, but she shot from a distance, and was safe. The shuffling stopped, and, besides the resounding, ever present but far-off song of the infected, it was quiet. Her footsteps echoed off of the buildings surrounding us, loud in the quiet atmosphere. I glanced back at my wound; it wasn't half-healed yet. "Damn…" I muttered, wishing it would close faster.

It hurt. A lot, and it wasn't healing all that fast. At all… Suddenly I wasn't an asset, but a liability. I gritted my teeth. This was the last thing I wanted. "Leon…Carry me. Let's get out of here." I whispered, giving up." He nodded, and a second later I was back in his arms. I sighed quietly, hating myself more than I ever had. This loathing…Rachel would've called in 'unhealthy' and frowned at me, wondering what she could do to help. I smiled wistfully despite myself. Whenever she got that frown I got angry at her, knowing she wanted to help when all I wanted was to wallow. I had always been selfishly angry, expecting everyone to let me hate myself. It was pathetic.

The rage crawled up my throat, and my hands, the previously discarded boot clutched tightly in their pale grip, tightened more around the stiff black material. Leon glanced down, and gave me a questioning look, and rolled his eyes when I pretended I didn't see it. "Laya…which way are we supposed to go?" Claire asked suddenly, looking around.

I turned my eyes up, looking around us. "How am I supposed to know? I don't live here…wait…you don't know?" I asked, feeling the blood draining from my face. Claire turned to me, alarmed. "No…I'm just here looking for my brother…" I turned to Leon, who shrugged. "I just got here today…" he defended himself. I groaned angrily. "I was here visiting Rachel… So the two of five of us who actually lived here are dead…" I groaned. I was trying to keep the agony out of my voice, not wanting to completely freak anyone out…even though I probably already had…

Leon groaned angrily, and Claire seemed to sigh. With that, we were completely lost in a city filled with zombies' intent on eating us…and we had no way out.

**Okaaay… I like to think that was a good re-introduction chapter! Lolz, anyway, I'm so sorry for the long wait… : I have no excuse, only apologies. In theory, you shouldn't have to wait as long for the next, and I will continue to work very hard! Thank you for reading, please review with comments and suggestions to make my work better! :D**


	8. Mercedes

**Chapter eight finally… :3**

**This one's gonna be long I think…I hope… Either way, enjoy!**

**Disclaimer-I still don't own Resident Evil. I haven't for the last 7 chapters, why would I now?**

I was exhausted, and finally allowed myself a second to think, leaning my head on Leon's warm, solid chest and closed my eyes, trying to concentrate…

A second later I was fast asleep…deeply asleep…

Leon's voice woke me up. He was saying my name, and I liked the way it sounded in his masculine voice.

"Laya…Laya!" he shook me slightly, and I winced. I forced my eyes open, and realized that the initial pain of my leg was gone…but I was pretty sure it was still at least partially broken.

"What!" I asked, suddenly remembering everything that had happened, agony ripping through me freshly as I remembered that my stepsister was dead, as was the spunky kid who had continuously fought with my beloved older sister.

"Which way did you come into town? Do you remember?" he asked intently. I shook my head. "It was across town…Rachel lived on the opposite side of town…" I told him, still angry.

I lifted my leg to see how healed I was. The gash I had inflicted upon myself was an angry red line, looking weeks old instead of minutes. Leon's eyes widened at the wound, and I suddenly noticed that his breathing was heavy.

"How long was I asleep?" I asked, rubbing sleep out of my eyes. Leon looked back at me, then forward again, and shrugged. "About ten minutes…fifteen maybe." He answered vaguely, but I could tell he was lying, he knew that I was angry at myself.

"Tell me Leon." I demanded. He looked uncomfortable… Claire answered for him, not feeling the heat of my angry stare.

"Half an hour to an hour. I'm not sure." She answered.

No wonder Leon was breathing so hard…

"Set me down." Leon looked like he was going to protest, looked angry actually, but I interrupted and demanded again, "Set me down Leon." He frowned, but did as I commanded.

My leg took my weight, but it was shaking, and it hurt. I took a step, but nearly fell.

Shit. This wasn't good at all…

"It helped though…" I whispered, looking at the scar on my leg. "No." Leon's voice cut through my thoughts. I looked at him, startled. "What?" I asked, not sure I had heard him.

"You aren't maiming yourself like that again Laya." His voice was angry, and I stared at him blankly, wondering why he was so angry. He suddenly looked concerned, and my name escaped his lips again. "Laya? Are you okay?"

I looked down, thinking hard, trying to understand what he had said…and realized that my mind was moving slowly, like I was trudging through ice water…my body was shaking like I was too… before I could process what was happening, I was on the ground, convulsing.

My body spasmed on the ground for a moment, but stopped when the coughing took over. Deep, hacking coughs shook me, scraping my throat as I coughed up blood…so much blood…it ran down my chin and was splattered in front of me from my choking coughs. Air screeched through my throat in rasping breaths, but was cut off by more horrible convulsing coughs.

I barely noticed someone rolled me on my back, digging through the pouches on my belt…they cursed…and I tried to giggle as the most insane thought of, "It's bad to say bad words…" drifted dreamily through my head, just before pain exploded in my chest and blood gushed out of my mouth from my corrupted lungs, which would heal themselves only with a shot…

An injection into my jugular…suddenly my thinking, and airways, cleared for a moment, and I choked out, "Inject…into bloodw-wa…way" just before I started hacking again, my body curling in on itself.

"We got company Leon, hurry!" Claire's voice shouted, and a gunshot rang down the street.

Another sharp pain erupted, this one in my neck. Something seemed to enter me, and the familiar sensation of cold water running through my veins made my back arch and my mouth open in a gurgling scream, more blood escaping my parted lips.

"Laya?" Leon whispered anxiously. I felt my body collapse back to the ground, and my breathing was heavy, but almost clear. I coughed a little bit more, getting the last of the blood out of my lungs, and tried to sit up, but I fell. I heard the shuffling steps of the undead, but I was so tired…and my chest hurt like hell…and my leg was sore from my writhing around…

"Just leave me…" I moaned, wanting more than ever to die, giving up on the thought of survival.

Leon's voice was sharp, and each word cut through me as he snapped, "Laya. You don't want this. You're being selfish again Laya, you're tired of being selfish, aren't you? So stop it! Open your eyes and tell me the truth. You want to live, I know this Laya, so tell me the truth." He demanded.

I forced my eyes open and whispered the truth.

"I want…to die…" Leon growled, "Liar." And he pulled me up into his arms.

"Let's go." He said to Claire, who nodded. Leaving the approaching zombies, two were lying on the ground, dead for the second time.

I lay limp in Leon's arms, wallowing in agony. He was right, I was selfish…and I was horrible…and I was tired of being selfish, but how was I supposed to stop myself? It's just the way I am…

The pain radiating from my chest was fading, being replaced by the pain from my still-slightly-broken leg. Suddenly I realized that I was being whiny as well as selfish. I was acting spoiled and horrible. Groaning, I whispered, "I want to live." Leon gaped at me, not expecting me to give in.

I opened my eyes, and said, "Now let me walk." He shook his head.

"You don't even have shoes."

Suddenly I remembered my clothes. Looking down at myself, slightly curled in Leon's arms, I realized I was covered in my blood. "I need new clothes…" I whispered since my throat kind of raw from my attack.

Leon frowned. "Claire, think Laya desperately needs new clothes?" Claire glanced at my bloody skanky clothes and nodded.

"Probably a good idea." She consented. Leon sighed, having been sure that she would agree with him. "You two are such girls." He muttered angrily. "You realize the time problem we have, right?" he asked. I nodded. "I'll be quick." I tried to persuade him. He gritted his teeth. "Laya, we need to get out of here…"

"I'm covered in blood, my clothes are torn and slutty to boot, so can I please change?" I asked in my currently raspy voice. Claire looked at Leon and shrugged. "She's right." Claire agreed simply.

Sighing, Leon headed towards the hotel I had been looking at longingly. I grinned enthusiastically before wetting my dry lips…

I tasted blood, no surprise, but realized that meant blood would be all over my chin to. I reached up and furiously tried to rub off the still damp liquid on my chin. It just smeared, earning me a strange look from Leon, who was still breathing heavily from carrying all 105 pounds of me for over an hour. I knew he must be getting tired, but when we were in the room I could try to heal my leg again…If I could find a knife to use…

I realized that sounded a little bit masochistic, even in my head. Sighing let my bloody hand fall back into my lap.

Leon set me down when it came to climbing the stairs, taking a quick break while Claire made sure the lobby was clear. She grabbed a key from one of the bodies and jogged back to us.

"Room 27." She read to us as I pushed myself to my feet, my weight on my non-broken leg. She gave me a look that told me she didn't like me standing up on it, but I ignored her and Leon, who was also glaring at me. I turned towards the stairs, and leaning heavily on the already bloody handrail, I pushed myself up the stairs laboriously.

Leon tried to pick me up again, but I dodged him, ducking and lurching towards the side of my broken leg, earning a shout of pain and falling on my face. I scraped my thigh on a stair when my skirt pulled up, but I was able to get back on my feet with help from Claire. Leon realized quickly that if he tried to help I was only going to cause more harm to myself. I was a few steps behind them both, and was falling behind steadily.

Leon went ahead this time to check for the undead I was hearing. I directed him as best as I could before he jogged off, with Claire whispering to him to be careful. When he had disappeared onto the hallway of the first floor, Claire asked me why we didn't take the elevator, as I'd refused to when she had suggested it in the lobby.

"There were zombies." I answered numbly. "I could've taken care of them." Claire responded easily. I rolled my eyes. "There were too many zombies. They were exceeding the weight limit, I think. The elevator was groaning. I don't think it would've taken anymore weight." I told her. Claire shrugged, but I knew that she was thinking we could've pulled the body off the elevator. I didn't bother to answer, just continued struggling up the stairs, not wanting to explain the fear I'd had of elevators after listening to one fall when I was 12. My chest was heaving with my breath, which was harsh and loud. The once splendid lobby of the grand hotel was now obscenely bloody and looked like it had been the scene of a battle, not people falling victim to bites... This sounded slightly lame.

Well…something like that. The only way to really know would be to look at the security cameras.

Leon was waiting for us at the top of the stairs, and I pretty much collapsed when I got there. My leg hurt worse than ever, and I couldn't get enough air into my lungs. Leon didn't listen to my protests as he scooped me up once again, but I was too tired and in too much pain to do anything about it. We found room 27, the first 20 rooms on the ground floor of the hotel, which was very big… There were more halls spreading from the one we were in, the hotel being more like a labyrinth, but room 27 was in the main hall, only a few doors down.

"Why did we only grab one key if whoever was in this room might not have clothes that would fit Laya?" Leon asked suddenly.

"Because I took it from a woman who looked about the same size." Claire answered, adding, "I already thought of that Leon."

I started squirming, hoping Leon would set me down, but he didn't. He seemed to ignore me, and indicated for Claire to unlock the room. She did, and as she did I crossed my arms and glared at the attractive features of the man whose arms I was currently taking residence in.

He started to walk in after Claire, but I squirmed even more, protesting verbally to. "We're not married! Don't carry me!" I snapped angrily, and shouted when he all but dropped me, just barely keeping me from completely falling. He looked angry…

I hobbled into the room after Claire, and let her know that there was a zombie in the room before turning on the lights.

In front of me was a dead body, its throat looked torn out and its hands were bloody, his fingers in particular. I quickly realized he had scratched out his own throat…my eyes widened as I wondered why.

Was he trying to kill himself so he didn't turn into a zombie? Was-

A whimper interrupted my thoughts, and I looked up to see a little girl crouched behind a sofa. She had short blonde hair and dark eyes, and was curled into a ball.

When she saw me looking at her, she whispered, "Are you alive?" I nodded slowly, realizing I probably looked like one of the zombies, since my face would be pale from my attack, with blood all over my mouth and the front of me. I had a boot in my hand still though, and I was moving like I was alive, and with Leon behind me, who, though covered in my blood, still looked fairly lively, I thought it was pretty obvious I was human. She was trembling, and jumped up, whirling when Claire approached her from behind. Claire's shotgun was slung across her back and her hands were open to show the girl she wasn't holding anything.

"Where's my mommy?" the little girl asked, but I noticed that she was favoring one leg…and was the fabric on her red sock a little darker just above her ankle?

I squinted, and jerked backwards, falling into Leon when I realized she had been bitten. Her little face was pale, and sweat was making it shine a little in the dim light. She looked exhausted and sick. Somehow I knew she wouldn't be alive for much longer.

"What is it?" Leon muttered so only I could hear. I turned towards him, whispering back, "She's been bitten. Her red sock's covering the blood." I could see him looking for it, but muttered back, "I don't see anything Laya." I could tell he wasn't completely sure I was telling the truth. I sighed heavily, turning back to the girl. She looked at me, fear in her eyes, and I remembered I looked like crap, but that wasn't the big problem. I decided to come right out and say it.

"Have you…been bitten?" I asked, before realizing that my voice was sharp and accusing. Leon made a little sound of astonishment, then groaned angrily when he saw the scared little girls face. She shook her head, looking terrified.

I sighed, and Claire gaped at me. "N, n, n, n, n-no…" the girl stammered. She looked more frightened than I had ever seen anyone look since my stepmother's face the night Rachel came home an hour and a half late from her play recital six years ago. I hobbled away, realizing my leg was still swollen and gross looking. I'd let Leon and Claire deal with it, I wanted desperately to try and heal my leg again.

And get my bloody clothes off.

I found a kitchen, thankfully hidden from view of Leon and Claire, so they didn't see me take a knife and pour rubbing alcohol I found in a cabinet filled with vitamins (odd place to put it but hey, whatever works.) over the sharp blade. I slid the kitchen knife into the boot in my hands so they wouldn't noticed it, grabbed three apples and walked back out, tossing one to Leon, who caught it automatically, and one to Claire, biting into the third myself before gimping out again, trying to find a room.

It wasn't that hard, I found the woman, presumably the girl's mother's room. I went digging, and came up with a pair of blue jeans that actually looked like they would fit. After digging up a baggy black t-shirt with long sleeves, I hobbled into the bathroom adjoined to the room. I pulled off my bloody clothes, frowning at the blood down my face. I wetted a washcloth and wiped the blood off of my face. When I had washed all of the blood off, I grabbed the knife I had hidden and stared at it, sighing.

This was gonna hurt…again. I placed the sharp side of the blade onto my skin, and then pushed it into my skin, blood welling around the blade and pain lancing up my leg. This time I cut carefully, straight, not jagged and curved like the last time was. The cut was still deep, and I could see my bone…see where it was broken even.

Pain made it impossible to think straight, and I stopped a little before I was originally planning on it, but I grabbed a towel and placed it against my leg, closing my eyes tightly. I felt the towel grow damp beneath my hands, and the pain was still strong. I was sitting on the floor, gasping through my teeth. After a little while, I removed the towel, and saw that it was starting to heal. I released the breath I had been holding, and jumped when there was a knock at the door.

"Laya? It's Claire." I had guessed that from the voice, but it didn't matter. I started to panic, I knew my voice would be strained, and she'd be angry…but then again, there was nothing she could do to me…it didn't matter.

"What?" I shouted back, and, as I had guessed, my voice sounded tight and was higher than usual.

"Laya? What's wrong? Are you okay?" she asked, her voice getting worried. "Nothing," I started to say, but she interrupted, "I'm coming in Laya." And she opened the door, to see me wearing next to nothing, with a huge gash on my leg, my hair still bloody and tangled, and a panicked look on my face. Claire gaped at me, and slammed the door.

"Laya, you're an idiot! Do you realize that this might not work?" she hissed. I nodded, "Of course Claire, but it might." My voice was thick with pain. She sighed angrily, but shook her head. "You need to come out soon." Was all she said.

"Wait, what are we gonna do with the girl?" I asked. "Her names Mercedes, and Leon and I want to bring her with us." Claire informed me. "But she's infected!" I protested. I was shocked that they'd bring someone else who was going to die with us. "So are you." She shot back.

"I'm not less than an inch away from dying." I retorted angrily. Claire's anger seemed to fade. "What?" she asked, seeming to be confused. "She's not going to last much longer…I wouldn't be surprised if she dies within an hour Claire." I sighed, trying to ignore the pain still running through my leg. "Oh…" Claire whispered, looking away from me.

"Go sleep. You look exhausted." I said suddenly, looking at her sympathetically. She nodded tiredly, muttering something about Leon having said the same. With that she walked out, closing the door softly behind her.

I looked back down at my half-healed leg and realized that it felt a little better, the break, not just the gash.

I stared at it, and glanced around me, finding a little cabinet where there was a first-aid kit. I dug through it for a moment, and found what I was looking for.

There was a roll of bandages inside, and I turned back and started wrapping my leg tightly. When it was finished, I had used almost the entire roll, but pushed it into the pocket of my new jeans, which I carefully slid on right after. I buttoned the jeans and looked at the huge sink on the counter…then grabbed a bottle of the complimentary shampoo they put in hotel rooms and washed the blood out of my chestnut hair, returning it to its original slightly brown color. After that I pulled the loose long sleeve shirt on over a tank top I found lying on the floor that smelled clean.

Freshly dressed and washed, I toweled my hair just enough so it wasn't dripping and pulled it back into a ponytail so it wasn't in my way anymore. The strands that fell around my face, too short to stay in the ponytail with the rest of my hair, framed my face and got my cheeks damp. I didn't mind too much.

I limped to back to the living room area, where Leon was leaning against the wall, dozing, Claire was asleep on the cleaner of the two bloody couches, and the little girl, Mercedes, was curled on the floor, looking half dead. I sighed and looked around…and realized that I needed to look for a map. I turned to the little girl, who was now looking at me warily, trying to hide her bitten ankle. I ignored her and sweetly asked; "Would you know where a map might be?" she looked at me cautiously for a moment, then nodded slowly, and whispered "In my mom's room…in her dark blue duffle bag…"

I stood back up from my crouching position and walked back into the room I had found the clothes in. I looked around. I eventually found the duffle bag she mentioned underneath the bed. I dragged it out and started digging through the make-up, underwear, and other possessions in the bag.

In the bottom of the bag was a phone book…not what I'd been expecting, but it had a map. I tore out the map and walked back to the living area, reading. When I looked up, just to check everyone was still there, I had heard something shifting from the room, but wasn't sure if it was from the room above us, which was heavily occupied, or where Leon, Claire and Mercedes were resting.

My eyes widened, and my head whipped around a few times, just to be sure. Mercedes wasn't there. "Mercedes?" I asked quietly, starting to get a bad feeling in my stomach. I limped around a little bit, looking behind couches and such. This time, my voice a little louder, I called "Mercedes?" I was starting to get worried now. Leon woke up when I shouted her name for the third time, and Claire shifted but remained asleep. "What is it?" Leon asked groggily, sounding half asleep still. "I don't…Mercedes is gone." I said, looking at him anxiously. He seemed to wake up immediately, and started looking around. He too called her name, "Mercedes?" and looked around. This time Claire did wake up, and when I explained to her what was happening while Leon walked through the hotel room looking for her, she leaped to her feet and started calling for the girl.

My mind was racing. She didn't leave the apartment, I would've heard that, but she wasn't in any of the rooms, Leon confirmed a moment later, even as Claire futilely searched the rooms again.

She had disappeared somehow, and I knew she was in the room, but how she had hid so quietly was a mystery to me.

So now we had a missing infected girl, me with a still-healing leg, an exhausted rookie cop, and an exhausted, now panicked young woman looking for someone who either didn't want to be found, or was dead.

**That's the end of this chapter… **

**Will Mercedes become a zombie? Will they have to shoot the poor little girl? Will they find her?**

**Guess you're gonna have to keep reading to find out! **

**Please review and give suggestions about how to make my work better if you'd be so kind. Thank you! **

**See you next time with chapter nine of The Change.**


	9. Pain

**Here's chapter nine! Enjoy!**

**Disclaimer-I still don't own Resident Evil…blah blah blah. You should know this by now…**

I was cradling my growing headache, trying to think of why Mercedes would be hiding.

I was lying in between the two couches in the living room of the hotel room we were currently occupying. Leon was sitting in a chair at a nice-looking wooden table with bloodstains on it that was just outside the kitchen and Claire was still frantically looking for Mercedes. A piece of paper was lying on my stomach, the map I ripped out of the phonebook. I briefly wondered how my leg was, and then tried to re-focus on the current problem of the missing infected girl. I couldn't hear her over the pounding of my blood through my veins and the shuffles and moans of the zombies upstairs, through the shouts of Claire and the breathing of Leon.

It was too much…my head was going to explode, I was sure of it.

Suddenly it all seemed to press in on me, and I felt like screaming at them all to shut up…I wanted air…

Air…fresh air…I opened my eyes and listened to the breeze…I leaped to my feet and ran-limped past Leon to the sliding glass door behind him, that I hadn't noticed until now was open. I shoved it open the rest of the way and ran onto the balcony…which was connected to a fire escape. I groaned and ran back into the hotel room, shouting Claire's name as I ran into the kitchen and started to dig through the cabinet with all the vitamins for ibuprofen, which I found after a moment. I downed two with a glass of stale water that happened to be sitting there; I tried not to think about it too hard, and ran back into the room. "Grab your stuff." I instructed and ran back out the sliding door and started run-limping down the stairs.

Claire and Leon weren't too far behind me, and caught up with my slower pace within a few seconds. The map still clutched tightly in my hand, I started running as fast as I could towards the street. "How do you know where you're going?" Leon asked, and I couldn't blame him. It was a good question.

"I can still hear her, barely. There's gonna be zombies over here." I warned them, snagging one of Leon's guns. I was still gimping around a little bit, my leg hurt a lot to, but even thought the girl was doomed I didn't want to see her die like this…Eaten by zombies…

It was horrible to even think about…

I shook my head and tried to run faster, realizing I was falling behind. I almost fell though, my only partially healed leg refusing to hold my weight. I groaned angrily and started running again, Mercedes' faint footsteps growing fainter. She wasn't too far ahead, but over my labored breath and the moans of zombies, and Leon and Claire's heavy breathing I couldn't hear much. Groaning in anger again, I continued running, and was able to keep Leon and Claire about ten yards ahead of me, but it wasn't easy. Anything but, and it hurt a lot to keep such a fast pace…

Suddenly I heard a thump instead of footsteps a long ways away. "Go faster!" I shrieked, sudden panic flaring in my stomach; I was sure it was Mercedes. She had fallen…her ankle giving out or the infection taking over her. Either way, she was in big trouble.

I watched Leon and Claire pull ahead of me, both much faster than I was in my weakened, limping state. I kept moving though, and still had Leon's gun in my hand. My leg ached horribly, and my head throbbed in time with it…my vision was blurring a little bit, but I kept gimping towards the sound of their footsteps…

"Keep going Claire, I'll catch up." I heard Leon's voice through a daze, still trying to move, finally I couldn't.

I stopped, breathing heavily…and fell, completely exhausted and unable to keep running. Warm arms lifted me, and I whispered "She's not going to be alive, Leon."

He nodded, "I know, but she might be." He said between gasps of air.

I drifted into unconsciousness, unable to fight off the black tide any longer.

I woke up a little later, and my leg, though still throbbing, didn't hurt as bad, but my headache was much worse, like someone had taken a sledgehammer and beaten my brains in over my left ear. I was laying on cold cement, and felt warm…stickiness seeping through my hair…

Blood, it had to be blood. I opened my eyes slowly, and saw that it was just water…

Why was my head in a puddle? I couldn't think past that, it hurt my head too much. I slowly opened my eyes, and let them adjust to the dim light. Claire was hovering above me, whispering to me, "Laya, are you alright?"

I tried to nod, but it hurt even worse, so I just groaned. I heard her sigh in relief, then call, "She's okay Leon!" He exhaled heavily, and seemed to be a little relieved. I groaned, "What happened…?"

"You started seizing and hit me in the face, I accidently dropped you." Leon frowned as he said it, and I saw a red mark on the side of his face.

"Sorry." I whispered, as it hurt to speak any louder.

"Can you get up Laya?" Claire asked quietly, and I groaned at the thought, knowing that I'd probably throw up.

"Maybe." I whispered again, and started to try to push myself up.

I was right. I felt nauseous as I moved, and stopped when I was sitting up, a hand over my mouth, breathing heavily. I swallowed, feeling something rising up my throat and not wanting to see what it was.

I continued trying to push myself up, but had to stop when another wave of nausea hit.

"Leon…I think you gave her a concussion." Claire gaped, looking at me seriously, as if trying to decide.

"I doubt it…just hit my head a little hard." I whispered, groaning again. My head ached… the sledgehammer was back, but continuously pounding now. Leon looked a little worried now, and asked quietly, "I guess it's possible…"

"Mercedes?" I suddenly asked, wondering what happened, I looked at Claire, my head whipping towards her, then groaned and held back vomit trying to rise in my throat, having moved way to fast. I groaned again, but opened my eyes and looked at her.

Her pale, ashen face was all the answer I thought I needed…then a small, feminine cough came from Leon's direction. I looked towards him, turning my head slowly, but as fast as I could. He shifted, and I saw a small shape hiding behind him.

The girl was even paler now, and looked like she had a fever the way sweat was dripping down her cheeks, and she was definitely favoring one leg, but she was alive.

She had just tripped…I looked back down at her ankle, wondering if I had been wrong and she actually wasn't bitten.

No such luck, the blood was still on her sock, and I noticed she had a strange, decaying scent about her. It was gross, and I couldn't stop myself from wrinkling my nose from the stench.

She glared at me, and breathing heavily, approached me. I nearly gagged as the putrid aroma washed over me, and I refrained from breathing.

"Yes I was bit!" the girl shouted, "Yes, I'm dying, but I still…don't want to die like this…" she whispered, tears forming in anger and sadness.

She had minutes left, maybe. I half expected her to collapse where she was. My eyes were watering with lack of breath, and my lungs hurt and my hand, covering my mouth and nose, started shaking.

"You smell like the dead." I whispered with the last of my air.

Her eyes widened, so did Leon and Claire's, and I couldn't do it…

I inhaled deeply, and gagged, my hand covering my mouth as I gagged noisily, but was lucky enough for nothing to come up. I shut my eyes tightly, not breathing again.

Mercedes started to back up slowly, one step at a time…then, it was almost in slow motion, and she fell.

She fell backwards slowly, her eyes widening as she did. Leon automatically started to lean forward to catch her, but I shouted, "No!"

My head burst in pain with my shout, and the girl's head hit the road at the same time. A gross crack echoed through the streets. She had fallen hard somehow, and her eyes were closed, blood started seeping out from under her head. Her chest wasn't rising and falling with breath…Mercedes was dead.

I pushed myself to my feet, swallowing again, and staggered. Leon looked at me, still gaping. "We have to go." I whispered, but fell, almost landing on top of the dead girl. Leon caught me, and I was rather proud of myself for not vomiting all over him. He lifted me, and I whispered "Don't drop me this time… my brain might actually start leaking out of my ears…" I voiced what it felt like. I could hear what I knew was blood, but felt like throbbing pain, in ringing in my ears from my head wound, and I groaned again.

This was not a good day, would not be a good day, and my head hurt like hell.

**Rather short, but I was suffering from a little bit of writers block. Took me days to come up with this… .**

**Anyway, poor Mercedes! I was sure she was gonna last a little longer…guess not… Anyway, see you in chapter ten!**


	10. Oblivion

**WOOHOO! CHAPTER TEN, HERE I COME!!!!! I'm excited… never thought it'd come this far! XD**

**Disclaimer-I don't own Resident Evil…yeah…soooo…let's get on with CHAPTER TEN!!!!**

I opened my eyes a little later, the pulsing in my brain relieved a little, my regeneration powers finally kicking in. I looked around, and realized it was awfully quiet…no zombies within a distance for me to be on alert…

That surprised me, and set my suspicions on edge.

Leon's breath was heavy, and his chest raised more than usual…I realized he had been carrying me for awhile.

My leg was pretty much healed by now, and I wasn't nauseous anymore, so I quietly asked him to set me down. He obliged without arguing for once, and I started walking beside him. My steps were a little slower, but he kept pace with me, as Claire did on the other side. I assumed she was readying herself to catch me in case I wasn't feeling as well as I thought.

"Why it so quiet…this isn't right…something isn't right." I whispered, intending it to just be in my head. I realized I had said it out loud when Leon looked at me seriously, his breathing having returned to a little softer.

"What do you mean…?" he asked carefully, then added, "Isn't it a good thing?"

I heard something from behind us...shuffling approaching. It wasn't loud, only one or two…one…

Suddenly the shuffling steps took on a familiar rhythm…I froze, my eyes widening…

There were two; one much heavier than the other…I groaned, and realized what it must be…but how? It didn't make sense… that they would catch up so quickly…

Or maybe it did. Our progress had slowed down considerably…but for Rachel to have caught up to us…and Mercedes? It just didn't make sense…well, not much sense. Maybe I was denying it, trying to convince myself I wouldn't have to see my sister get shot…

Leon and Claire were looking at me. "What's wrong?" Claire asked, and I realized I was still in agony from my step-sister's death; I had just been ignoring it, focusing all my energy on the task at hand.

"It's… I don't know for sure…but I have to go back. I'll cat…" I was interrupted by both of them shaking their heads.

"No. It's too dangerous Laya." Claire insisted stubbornly. "But…" I protested weakly.

"No." Leon's voice tried to cut off my argument.

"I can't just leave her a zombie Leon! It's Rachel…I have to go back…to make sure she's dead…" I realized that my breath was suddenly coming in hysterical sobs, and tears were running down my face, having come from nowhere. I could hear they were getting closer, and as Claire took a step towards me, I shook my head and stepped away.

I was being ridiculous, and stupid, but I just couldn't leave my sister like that…a zombie thirsting for human flesh…

I ran. I turned and ran as fast as I could away from the other two, risking the lives I had sacrificed a lot to protect already. I approached the two zombies quickly, as we were moving towards each other.

I rounded a corner and stopped, the nausea returning, but not from my headache. It was from the sight of my older stepsister, shuffling towards me, bloody and mangled, and the child Mercedes a little ahead of her, looking much more human than most of the ravaged zombies did. Nothing had found her and gnawed on her before she woke up again.

My sister hadn't had such luck. Half of her right arm was ripped off, and her legs looked like they had been gnawed to the bone in spots I could see between the ripped fabrics of her jeans. Blood coated every inch of her body, and even from the distance between us I could see the new bright blue of both their eyes. I felt hot, salty, angry tears rolling down the cheeks, washing the sweat off of them.

I suddenly started to run, but was jerked to a halt by a hand on my arm. Leon jerked me back, breathing heavily, having given chase when I bolted. Claire was behind him, and looked up as he did.

A disgusted, horrified little noise came from her mouth. I turned away, towards Leon, and realized that, despite the sweat, Leon smelled good. I didn't really notice his arm wrap around my shoulders, trying to console me, his other hand gently prying the gun from my clenched fingers. I didn't fight back; still to shocked by the sight of my sister.

Two gunshots went off, extremely loud in my sensitive ears. I heard two thuds, and shrieked, turning back to where my sister and Mercedes had been.

"No!" I shouted, but Leon grabbed my side and held me back, the comforting arms becoming restraints as I struggled against him.

I was angry at Rachel, and Claire, Leon, Mercedes, Taigun, Umbrella. Everything…everyone. Suddenly, it seemed like everyone had abandoned me and I was left alone…completely alone in my dark, twisted, slightly insane mind.

Nothing mattered. My still-aching head, my leg which was wracked with pain I ignored, Leon's arms around me, Claire next to me, trying to calm my agonized, tormented screams as I fought with my personal demons.

Their claws grated at my skin…they ripped my coherent mind to pieces, leaving chaos and insanity in my mind. Everything came back, my parent's death, the injections in the Umbrella facilities, the adoption, the cutting, which I still had scars to remind myself of, trying to kill myself when I was fourteen because I couldn't get over the fact that I was an orphan. Everything came back to haunt me now…the good things to. My illogical attraction to Leon, my sweet older sister Rachel, all the times she had been there or saved my life, even Claire, who seemed like a good person even though she just shot my sister and a little girl. They ripped my sanity to shreds, and I was left a screaming, sobbing mess in the bloody street of Raccoon City, Leon's arms supporting my weight and Claire trying to calm me as I fell apart.

After ten minutes, I knew we were almost surrounded by the undead, but the agony of everything weighing down on me, and the bits of shredded sanity slowly being ripped out of my fingers by the clawed hands of imps and demons labeled with memories of mine. Finally, after what seemed an eternity, my throat was unable to produce such high-pitch shrieks…I was reduced to whimpers, and my body ached from fighting against the other two. I lay limp in Leon's arms, trying to focus on something, anything that could pull me out of the darkness of insanity.

It came a few minutes later, when my tears and whimpers stopped, and the last shreds of my mind were being stripped away, and Leon set me down. I walked a few steps away, quietly.

They didn't know what I was doing, just thought I wanted to be as alone as I could get… They didn't know that there was a zombie not ten yards away. I did…but I didn't care. He wasn't what I was going for…since I didn't know what I was going for, but death wasn't exactly it…just pain. Intense pain, agonizing enough to drag me out of the black splotching my vision was what I was looking for.

He knew I was there to…and started shuffling towards me. I giggled hoarsely, and whispered roughly "Don't let them hear you…" and giggled again.

Leon heard him first…but it was too late. I was already next to the man, who lunged when I was within two feet.

His teeth sank into the flesh of my soft, vulnerable neck, and I let my head fall to the opposite side so he could bite deeper…so he could cause more damage…more pain.

Maybe I was masochistic…

The man was wrenched away a moment later, and I fell to the ground, still giggling maniacally.

Leon was crouched over me a second and a gunshot later, and Claire was next to him. "Laya…Laya, why are you laughing? Laya, can you hear me?" he demanded, moving my head to look at the wound.

Blood covered the right side of my face and chest already; I could feel the warm, stickiness of it.

Then the pain hit.

It was worse than anything I had imagined, but my throat was to raw to create a good scream. It was extremely hoarse and almost impossible to recognize as a sound of pain. It was torture, and it sent me lurching out of my insanity. I was coherent again, gasping and shrieking quietly and hoarsely.

You know the feeling when you're content, and you close your eyes…and you feel safer and happier than you ever would? The blackness of your eyelids, spattered with light and color? Shapes shift in and out, and you might recognize some of them as people, places and things. Nothing hurt, and you were safe…it was perfect.

That place behind your eyelids is Oblivion. It is nothing, just your imagination filling in something where there is nothing.

Where I was…was the opposite of that. It hurt more than anything I had ever experienced, and it was bright, spattered with black, which grew and shrank. I wasn't safe; I was in more danger than ever. There was no happiness here, it was suffering and decay and torture…It was the thing I was afraid of the most.

Complete…total…nothingness.

Everything was gone but the pain and fear, which were plentiful. There would be tears, if I had eyes to cry with. There would be screams, if I had vocal cords to make noise with. There would be ripping off my own flesh…if I had nails and hands to scrape my skin off with.

There was nobody…there was nothing…just loneliness and agony and fear…shadows hiding things just out of my reach, things that could either kill or save me.

Then again, death would be a savior…maybe I was dead…but I had always thought you just ended when you died, there was nothing, but you didn't realize because you didn't think anymore, because you didn't have to.

It was sudden, the pull back into reality. It was painful and set my chest heaving. My eyes opened and blinked, and I was coughing, blood gushing out of my mouth, coming up from the wound in my neck. I shuddered once, and I could feel Leon's hesitation, wondering if he should inject me or not.

I wasn't sure if he should…I didn't think it would help, but I didn't know if this would trigger some kind of attack from my virus.

The pain was keeping me from thinking straight and I didn't know what to do. I was so confused, and it hurt so bad…

I moaned, trying to get past the suffering. The only thought I could manage was 'Stop the pain…stop it…kill me…' and variations of the same words. Even in the few different languages I knew, I couldn't say it enough.

"Laya…It's…healing…" Leon's voice broke through my anguished thoughts. Claire looked, and was gaping when I cracked my eyes open.

I couldn't make sense of what he said. "What?" I tried to whisper, but found I couldn't. Instead, I just groaned, and felt blood gurgling out of my neck, escaping the confines it should've remained in.

For the first time, I was actually sure that I was going to die. I had wanted too many times, but this was the first I actually believed I would finally die…and I was scared. I was scared of death, even though I so desperately wanted it to get rid of the pain I was in.

My vision was blurring, so I closed my eyes, trying desperately to breathe. It was hard…I had to force myself to do things I should do naturally, and it felt like someone who was three hundred pounds was sitting on my chest…

Or maybe he was sitting on my neck. I couldn't tell through the pain.

This Oblivion, whatever it was… I seriously wished it would just go to hell.

**Heh heh…I'm totally evil…I seriously am truly evil in every sense of the word; I just can't stop putting poor Laya in so much pain… It's depressing really.**

**A little bit shorter than I wanted, but not too bad. Next chapter will (with any luck) be a little bit longer. Later, see you in chapter 11! **


	11. Salvation

**Laya and I are back for chapter 11! Enjoy!**

**Disclaimer-I don't own Resident Evil, but Laya is my character, as is Rachel and Taigun (currently deceased, may they R.I.P)**

The pain in my neck was incapacitating, and I was still trying to writhe in pain, but moving hurt too much, so I settled for begging for death in my head. I shrieked and moaned, but all in my mind. It was nice, no one could hear me but me, so they didn't worry as much…well…that probably wasn't true, but I was too busy agonizing over the torture to think about it too much.

I just wanted to die… Death was something that I had wished for before, but never like this, I never wanted it this much. I never…I never realized there was beauty in life, but suddenly there was, and now when I wanted to die, and I wanted to live, I saw what had been staring me in the face since I was thirteen, the first time I tried to commit suicide and Rachel saved me…

Life was worth it, it was worth the pain of memories and the pain inflicted by people, it was even worth the physical pain…but not all of it, not this…not this horrible, agonizing pain that made me want death more than ever.

I felt something…something cold settling in my chest, squeezing it hard, and constricted my breath. I tried to gasp out another raspy breath, but the chill spread, and it was harder than breathing had ever been. I was dying…I knew it. This was what death felt like…cold, constricting, slow and painful…

I could hear Leon and Claire's voices, but it was like what you hear in someone else's semi-noisy house over the phone, just distant chatter, impossible to make out, and you can't just tune it out, it's so there…and its annoying but you can't stop it…

I tried to focus on the freezing in my chest, which was spreading down my arms and legs and creeping at an impossibly slow, agonizing pace up my neck, making it nearly impossible to breath and forcing me to try…

I thought it would end…I thought the freezing death would end it when it crept to my head, toes and fingertips, but it didn't, it lingered and choked me so I was left with mind-numbing cold, pain, and almost unable to breath…

Suddenly their voices came into focus, and with a sharp jolt, my chest jerked upwards, my eyes opened, and my airway cleared itself with a deep, hacking cough that forced blood through the airway I didn't realize had just healed itself. The blood spattered over my face, since the cough didn't have enough force in my horizontal position. I sucked in a deep lungful of air, and I felt the cold fighting against me. I took in another sharp breath, squeezing my eyes shut tight against the ache in my throat and the cold in my body.

"Laya?" Claire's frightened voice broke through my concentration, and I opened my eyes.

"Uhn… Ow…" I whispered coarsely, and realized my airway and the arteries in my neck had healed, but the skin was still ripped apart, just forming a scab around the edges was my guess.

"Laya…you're alive…" Leon whispered as his eyes widened, "You're healing…"

"Yeah."I grunted lightly, my voice barely audible. I was lying completely still, afraid that any movement might tear the slowly forming scab on my throat.

"I don't think I'm gonna do that again…" I tried to say, but my voice couldn't be considered a whisper towards the end, it was quieter than that.

Leon must have heard me though, because his eyes softened a little with relief and he relaxed above me. I was sure Claire didn't hear it all of my comment, but judging from her relieved face and smile she caught the first part and guessed the rest.

I closed my eyes and lay still for a little bit, and it was quiet save for Leon and Claire's breathing and the shuffling and scraping moans of the infected running amuck in the city. I inhaled deeply, filling my chilled lungs, and waited until I couldn't hold it any longer before blowing the breath out slowly, then breathing deeply to catch my regular breathing pattern again.

My body was still cold, and I assumed it would be for a little while, that was logical when you lost as much blood as I had. I was probably paler than the dead, and the blood all over me, fresh and drying, wouldn't help my appearance, but that didn't really matter to me for the moment.

I was alive.

I opened my eyes and sat up slowly, feeling Claire and Leon's eyes on me the whole time, still amazed that I survived a bite to the throat. I couldn't blame them; I was just as surprised, if not more. I had never felt death's presence like that… He had never been so close to me before, which scared me since I had felt him before, I had thought so anyway. This was new though, it had never been so…there…so present to me before. It scared me, and it was relieving that it made me scared when I thought of dying…

And I felt guilty suddenly, because so many had died around me, the blood spattered all over the streets reminded me that this was a city filled with death, and that I was alive was incredibly lucky. I sighed, and pulled myself to my feet, careful not to turn my head. Leon and Claire rose with me, and I started walking slowly. "We should get out of here soon…" I whispered, swallowing and flinching, since the action hurt.

Leon was only a step or two behind me, and a little on my left side. I knew he was getting ready to either shoot me or catch me, which made me feel even guiltier, and I felt empty when it made me think of the time I gave myself a concussion and Rachel had done the same thing, but…Rachel was gone now. She was dead, and I was alive, and I had to keep living for her, or I would hate myself forever.

I was making myself depressed by thinking of her, but part of that was Leon's fault…I wouldn't be thinking of her if he wasn't walking behind me like that, like she had. I tried to focus on listening around us, but I could feel Leon's presence, the warmth his body was giving off, and his smell, and I could hear his light breath and his shoes against the road, and I realized that I was falling in love with him.

This scared me more than dying had.

I tried not to conjure up a picture of him in my mind, but I couldn't not do it…I couldn't stop it…and it made my chest tight with anger and fear when, in my head, he smiled at me. I shivered, and shook my head, trying to dispel the mental image, which pulled on my scar, the still-healing bite wound in my neck. It pulled the wound open again, and I stopped, crying out a little and raising my hand to cover the wound, which was bleeding starting to bleed again.

I tried to focus ahead of me again and keep going, but he heard my cry of pain.

"Laya, what's wrong?" he asked, and his hand went to my dirty, bloody shoulder with a little bit of firmness, and the momentum of my walking turned my body towards him so he saw my bleeding throat. I tried to hide it, but he sighed. "Should we stop until that's healed enough to stop tearing open?" he asked. I was about to shake my head, but his hand caught my cheek and stopped me. His eyebrows were raised dubiously, and I knew that trying to rip it open further wasn't going to help convince him to keep moving.

"Really Leon, we need to keep going. The faster we move the faster we get out of here." I argued his look verbally. He sighed, and I knew he wanted to stop, but he started walking. Claire, who had realized we had stopped a few moments after we actually stopped, casted a curious glance at both of us but didn't ask anything, she just turned and started walking again.

"There are a few of them coming, let's go a little faster." I urged, picking up my pace to a jog before Leon could comment on ripping open my neck again.

He made an annoyed sighing sound from behind me, but I heard him start to go a little faster before breaking into a jog that matched mine, and Claire did as well.

We were quiet, and I was still trying to keep my thoughts away from Leon, and away from the bloody streets we were running down, from the innocent, dying and dead people throughout the city. Instead, I tried to think about food. I wasn't hungry, but it was something else to think about. I realized that the thought of meat made me sick since I kept picturing it have a face, being human, and I was suddenly a zombie in my own mind.

I shuddered, but kept going; trying to keep my head from bouncing all over the place and ripping open my throat again. It still hurt, the death of the two little girls I didn't know, and the death of my beloved older sister, but I couldn't let myself go like I had when I saw Rachel and Mercedes…I wouldn't be able to survive a wound like that again, I could feel it. Call it women's intuition, whatever you want, I just know that my regeneration powers would never be that strong again…

**That's chapter 11. I thought that was a fairly dramatic ending to the chapter… anyway, chapter 12 will probably come out soon, but not for a few days… HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! XD**


	12. Oh shit

**Disclaimer-I don't own Resident Evil…but I do own this story and Laya**

I walked along quietly, listening intently for any signs of danger. We had stopped jogging about ten minutes back, and I shuddered as I realized it was getting colder as dawn approached.

We were almost out of the city. Only a few more hours…it would be light by the time we reached city limits, and the blackness, penetrated by streetlights and the lights from stores, would soon start to lift. Just a little longer I had to keep them alive, just a little bit longer before I had to make something of myself.

I wanted to keep fighting…I wanted to take down Umbrella, who I was sure had caused this catastrophe. The thought of making something of myself was…comforting and terrifying. I shook my head hard, trying to concentrate on something else.

I had mutilated myself, and survived. I had been mutilated, and survived, and I was worried that the real world I wouldn't survive in? I started laughing a little at the thought, then harder, and soon I was bent double, laughing so hard that tears were streaming from my eyes and down my cheeks at the horrific irony. Leon and Claire were looking at me with the strangest expressions, and I started laughing again as I wondered if they were wondering that maybe the zombie had messed with my mind instead of killing me.

Maybe it had.

After a few minutes, I was able to regain control over myself by biting my lip till it bled. "May I ask what that was about?" Claire asked, still looking a little bit worried.

I shrugged, and the sound of a scream chocking off made me flinch and finish sobering up. There was no hope; I could hear the flesh of the unknown human crunching under the teeth of the undead. I sighed, and Leon and Claire looked at me questioningly. I shook my head, and Leon whispered "Can't we try?"

"To late already. Let's keep going."

We started walking again, and I wiped away the tears from my laughing deftly, wondering why I found that funny.

"What's up?" Leon's dark voice was soft, and I knew he realized that I didn't want them to know, so kept his voice down to keep Claire from hearing, as if I'd tell him.

I wondered if he knew I wanted to tell him.

"Nothing, I was just thinking and remembered something funny." I lied smoothly, but I glanced up and saw his raised eyebrow and sighed quietly at his perception.

"It doesn't matter Leon, it was just…ironic. I found it slightly humorous."

"Slightly…humorous? Laya, you were practically seizing from laughing so hard." He said it bluntly, and I frowned at myself.

"Leon, drop it." I spat angrily. I wasn't angry at him though…I was angry at myself for laughing so hard for no reason. I sighed then, guilty for snapping at him.

"Sorry…I just, Leon, if something, anything, brings someone a little bit of…mirth, in this kind of situation; shouldn't it be a good thing? That I have…the humor…to laugh at something even though we could die…" I looked away, not really sure how to finish what I was saying. Or if I had said it right…

He chuckled a little bit, and I looked up at him. "That was why I was asking…I was wondering what could be that funny to you when…" he didn't finish, but he didn't have to.

"When Rachel's dead and you guys could die to." I finished. He nodded, and then looked at me funny.

"Are you saying you can't die?" he asked.

"I'm saying I wouldn't care if I died. I don't want to…but it wouldn't really matter…" I looked forward, avoiding his cynical gaze.

"It would matter…I'd care. Claire would care." His voice was soft, and his gaze was serious and unwavering. Even though we were walking side by side, so his full gaze couldn't possibly be set on me…it felt like it. I didn't answer. He sighed.

"Laya, why are you so sure that you don't matter? What has caused you to believe that so thoroughly? It doesn't make sense." He was angry now…

"Everything that's happened to me. All my life…every year, there's an attempt on my life an," he cut me off angrily, and grabbed my arm, stopping suddenly.

"You're the one attempting to kill yourself Laya!" he burst out, pointing to the scar running up my forearm from my wrist to the crease at the inside of my elbow. "Yes, I did notice." He added sharply.

I jerked my arm away and started walking, ignoring Claire, who had turned and was watching us. I walked past her, careful not to touch her. I wanted to tell him everything, to explain why I had tried to end my own life.

But I didn't. I kept walking, trying to convince myself that it only hurt because, though I wasn't lying, I wasn't telling the truth. I didn't want to admit that I was falling for him.

The serious expression etched on his face, and the dark brownish blond hair starting to grow into one of his eyes…all of it, everything about him attracted me, even though he annoyed me to no end…

I stopped, and looked back. They hadn't moved. Leon was staring at me angrily, and Claire was gaping, trying to figure out why I had a huge scar on my arm I figured.

"What? Are you coming?" I snapped, and continued walking. Then jogging…and soon I was running away. I stopped, turned on my heel and ran back.

My face was pale, I could feel the blood drain from my face, and I screamed at them "Run! Come on!" They were alarmed, not expecting this, and Leon automatically turned, drawing his gun, but I grabbed the back of his blue R.P.D uniform and started dragging him back as Claire ran on. "Come…_on _Leon!" I shouted, and releasing his shirt, I turned and ran after Claire, the guns on my hips slamming against my thighs as I raced down the blood-spattered roads, avoiding cars and bodies as well as bits of flesh and slippery pools of congealing bloods along the street.

Leon was behind me, and I knew they were both confused and frightened by my actions, but I couldn't tell them yet, I was struggling to breath… I wouldn't be able to talk for a few minutes…

I was running harder than I could remember, Leon was easily keeping up since he was in good shape, and Claire was managing. Finally, I crashed, slipping and falling in a puddle of gore. I landed hard, and my momentum carried me forward over the pavement for a few feet. I cried out as the rough road surface scraped the skin off of my cheek as I rolled. I lay still for a second, unable to recapture the breath knocked out of me.

Leon's hand suddenly wound around my arm, and hoisted me up to my feet. "Laya…" he whispered, and shook his head slightly before letting go and running after Claire. I followed, but it was getting closer…I wondered if they could hear it to. I felt the blood of those dead and my own on my face, and I shuddered, which nearly made me fall again.

"Damn…" I grunted softly through clenched teeth, trying to force my breathless body to keep running. It was hard… my lungs ached for oxygen, and my legs were screaming at me to slow down, but the noises ringing in my ears told me to keep going, told me to speed up.

After a few more minutes of gray and red blurs around me, I couldn't do it, and I fell with a shout, my legs limp beneath me. I heard them both stop, heard them breathing hard, and I tried to get up, but my legs wouldn't support my weight. I had ran to hard to fast, and now I couldn't even stand. Leon tried to pull me to my feet again, but I fell back down, my breath excruciatingly slow, even though it was probably harder than Leon or Claire's. I groaned, "Just keep going…"I panted, motioning them on.

Leon shook his head, as did Claire. "We cant do that laya…you promised to keep us safe, so in return we have to do the same." The young woman's voice was hard, and I had to bite my lip to keep the moisture in my eyes from spilling over from her words.

"No…go, please. It's coming, it's almost here…whatever it is…" and the ground seemed to shake as a loud cry reverberated through the street…

"STARS!"

**-Cough- sorry about that last bit, I just had to throw Nemesis in there….He's amazing…but since none of them are Stars he won't bother them, but he can still scare the shit out of them, right?  
Anyway, see you next time; sorry this chapter was kind of short. =D**


	13. The new girl

**Disclaimer- I don't own Resident Evil...**

**ON TO CHAPTER 13!**

I shook with suppressed fear when the cry rang through the street. It was terrifying, the booming mechanical voice, just a street or two away.

"What the hell is that?" Claire shouted, jumping away from the noise, and Leon's face opened with understanding.

"That's why Laya told us to run…" his voice was soft with controlled fear.

"Yeah, so can we go?" the cry had sent adrenaline racing through my veins, and I stood up, shivering. Leon nodded, and started running again, and another cry of "Stars!" chased us down the road, nearly making me trip over my own feet when I jumped.

"You okay?" Claire's voice called up from behind me. I nodded, and hoped she saw.

It didn't make sense suddenly…what did the thing mean by 'Stars'? I didn't understand…

"What's Stars?" I yelled, and Claire called back to my surprise.

"The Raccoon City Police Department S.T.A.R.S, they," I cut her off, "I know." To stop her from wasting her breath telling me about something I already knew.

I stopped running. "Why…why is it yelling S.T.A.R.S…?" I asked, utterly confused. Leon stopped and looked at me, and Claire nearly ran into me before shrugging between hard breaths. "I don't know." She answered.

"Maybe…that's what it's after?" I guessed, unsure of anything right now.

"Oh my god, Chris!" Claire's face was pale with fear, and I looked at her, confused.

"Chris?" I asked.

"My brother!" she informed me.

"… Are you saying he's a S.T.A.R…?"I asked, getting confused, and then groaned when she nodded tensely.

"We can't do anything…he's probably dead anyway." Leon sounded heartless… Claire flinched, and I sighed… and jumped when the voice shouted again, only a little ways away now. Maybe the next street over.

"Damn…"I cursed, not sure what to do. My mind was frozen, and I couldn't make it work.

It was getting closer… "Come on!" Leon shouted in my ear, and I jumped, surprised, and my brain jumped into overtime, racing ahead. I ran after him, trying to calm my wild thinking.

I wasn't successful. This was surprising me, I usually was able to keep my head during things like this…then again I had never been in a situation this stressful.

I shivered, and kept running. I was scared… Who wouldn't be?

"Turn! It's coming! Turn here!" I shrieked, growing panicked. I couldn't let it see us… If it saw us, that could mean death…but I wasn't sure.

The way it only said S.T.A.R.S… it was starting to confuse me...

But my mind was trying to make too many connections. It made it to hard…and I couldn't think right…

I tried to focus. When we rounded the corner I stopped in the alley, panting, and shot a few zombies that were further down the road…

Breathing heavily, I walked quietly to the corner of the building, slightly curious. I peeked around, heard Leon approach me from behind, and I held up a hand to stop him…

My eyes widened, and I gasped when I saw it. It was horrifying, and disgusting. It was taller, and more muscular than a human… Its skin looked discolored, yellowish, and the skin on its face looked stitched together. Strange purplish tubes protruded from its skin and re-entered on its shoulders and around its neck, and the skin was pulled away from his teeth, exposing them.

I shuddered, and pulled away, shaking my head, desperately trying to rid myself of the sight of the thing. It was carrying weapons, and I gagged noisily. It cried out the same thing again, and its voice knocked me out of my mental funk.

I could think straight, and I realized we needed to get far away…fast. I started running, and they followed like I hoped they would.

I was breathing hard from the running, and I wasn't sure where I should go, which way, but I decided to head the same way we had been. I ran down the street, listening to our feet pounding against the pavement. After about a block, whatever I was hearing seemed to have gone the opposite direction, as I couldn't hear it anymore.

"I…think…it's gone…"I panted between gasps. Leon and Claire nodded, but Claire looked worried. I couldn't blame her though, it was her brother.

After a second, and a few gunshots at zombies, I had mostly regained my breath and was glancing around.

"What… is that…?" I whispered, looking up for the sound.

Then it dawned on me as my eyes locked in on the source of the noise, widening as I whispered, "Oh god…"

"What? What is it Laya?" Leon's voice was tense, and his gaze followed mine, and his jaw dropped like I was sure my own had.

It was a chopper. Falling, well, crashing would be my guess if I was taking the flames into account. I was sure I could make out the R.P.D insignia on the side, and I started running towards it, only to be jerked back by Leon's hand, clasped around my forearm.

"What's your problem? There could be someone in there!" I shouted at him, sure he was going insane.

"It could explode Laya!" he shouted back. I hesitated. He was right, but I didn't care. I had to try. I turned, and wrenched my arm from his grasp and bolted, running as fast as my exhausted legs would carry me.

I couldn't see anything that indicated there was someone who was alive, but that didn't really matter to me. I stumbled, but didn't fall, and kept running. My lungs ached from the cold air burning my lungs, and it felt like there was something sitting on my chest, but I forced breath through my pipe, and it rasped down my throat painfully.

God, breathing burned like swallowing fire, and my legs ached, muscles screaming at me to stop, but I couldn't. If there was someone in the chopper to save, I would save them. I had to.

It had almost reached the ground, about a hundred yards up. I could hear it, and as it fell I could feel the heat from the flames…

And I saw someone, desperately trying to get out, but they looked stuck.

My eyes flitted, and I stopped, then ran again as the door burst open, someone leaped out and landed on me, forcing me to the ground. The air was knocked out of me, and I barely dragged the person under the car we had landed next to before the chopper hit.

I heard Leon shout, but I couldn't hear his words over a cry of pain.

It was mine. I hadn't managed to pull my legs under, and a piece of the chopper had imbedded itself into my flesh. Groaning in pain, I shoved the other person off of me and dragged myself out from under the car.

Still lying on the ground, I looked at where the chopper landed. My mouth opened and my eyes widened. It had exploded, and only a burning black metal frame was left. I screamed their names, "Leon? Claire?!" almost expecting no answer.

"Laya! Are you okay?!" Leon's voice called back from the other side of the chopper. I gritted my teeth, feeling tears gather in my eyes. We had been separated. Damn it all. How was I supposed to protect them from here?

"Yeah! I think I'm okay." I called back, angrily rubbing at my eyes. "A piece of metal landed in my leg, but it didn't get to deep, and it's not that big." I added, looking at my wounded leg.

"Was there anyone in the chopper?" Claire asked, yelling over the crackle of the flames.

"Yeah, they jumped on me." I informed them, and turned around to face the person.

It was a young woman. I groaned when I saw, in bold print on her dark blue uniform, S.T.A.R.S. "She's part of the S.T.A.R.S thing!" I yelled to them, and hoped that we wouldn't be seeing the 'S.T.A.R.S!' guy any time soon.

I dragged myself, having not yet pulled the metal out of my leg, to her side. I rolled her over, pushing thick dark hair off of her face. She was pretty, probably had some Spanish in her, with tan skin and nearly black hair, and she had fine features. She was slender, and taller than me.

"Laya! We're gonna try and come around. Don't move, okay? We're coming!" Leon disembodied voice called to me.

"Okay! See you in a few." I called back, keeping my voice confident.

I turned back to the unconscious woman beside me and sighed. "Wake up soon… I didn't run after you and let you jump on me for nothing." I whispered, and started looking to see if she was injured.

**Sorry, I got a little bout of writers block half way through, but it's done now. :3 please review and tell me how I did! :D**

**See you next chapter!**


	14. STARS

**Chapter 14…doing pretty good I think, since I didn't think I was going to get this far. **

**Disclaimer-I don't own Resident Evil**

I pulled myself into a sitting position next to the unconscious woman. I examined my leg for a moment, and, gritting my teeth and groaning in pain, I wrenched the metal out of it. Gasping, and holding my hands tightly to the bleeding wound after discarding the piece of metal, I glanced down at the woman. She looked older than me, and I was trying to guess by how much when she groaned, and her eyelids fluttered a little, her body tensing and raising off the ground a little.

Her eyes opened, and they were dark brown, with golden highlights.

"Hey. Nice landing." I greeted her, my voice still kind of thick from pain. She grunted, and winced as she started to sit up.

"Ow…who are you?" she looked at me. Her voice was deeper than I had expected, and had a husky Spanish accent. The overall affect was surprisingly pleasant.

"My name's Laya. You're in Raccoon City… You know what's going on right, with the zombies?" she nodded, and introduced herself as Jocelyn Rodriguez.

"Um, are we gonna, oh god, you're hurt!" she exclaimed as she looked down at my hands, still clenched around my leg. I nodded, "Yeah, but I'll be fine in a few minutes. We'll leave as soon as Leon and Claire catch up, they were on the other side of the chopper. They should be heading around now."

I yawned, and realized that I was completely exhausted. I had never been this tired in my life. My legs ached from all the running and my head throbbed with pain. I groaned, putting a hand to my temple, trying to force my eyes open. My eyelids were so heavy…

I almost fell over, breathing heavily from the effort of just staying awake.

"Are you okay?" she asked warily, not sure what she should be doing, if anything. She was getting nervous, I could tell. Being still in this situation did that to you.

"Yeah…I'm just tired." I answered sluggishly.

"Don't fall asleep! Um, who are Leon and Claire? You mentioned them…"

I tried to think, but my mind was so suddenly foggy. "Uh, their…well, Leon's an R.P.D officer, and Claire's brother's a S.T.A.R.S member like you… Uh, her last name's Redfield…" I couldn't remember if she had said his name.

"Chris. She's Chris Redfield's sister?" I nodded, and groaning, forced myself to my feet, and swayed. I was trying to keep myself awake.

I felt a blast of heat, and looked to my right, where a chunk of burning stuff had fallen to the ground. My eyes widened with an idea.

_Maybe I am masochistic_… I thought with a wry smile as Jocelyn looked after me, confused, as I staggered towards the wreckage.

"This is gonna hurt…" I grunted, and picked up a piece of melting metal by the side that was facing away from the crash. I heard Jocelyn's sharp intake of breath, and she grunted as she pushed herself up, but I was faster, even through the exhaustion, and had gently pressed the metal to the skin of my arm.

I was immediately awake, the desired effect, and screamed as the metal burned my flesh. I threw it back in the flames, and wondered if that was as good of an idea as I had convinced myself that it was.

I clapped my hand over the burn, and staggered back, blood still seeping from my leg. Jocelyn caught me before I fell backward.

"Why the hell did you do that? Are you stupid?!" she cried, looking about ready to smack some sense into me.

I grimaced. "Maybe." I panted, coughing through the smell of burnt flesh.

She pulled me away, possibly thinking I would do it again. I winced when my arm moved, pulling on the charred skin. "Ah! That hurts!" I gasped, my teeth clenched.

She started looking around for something, and with my uninjured hand, raised the hem of my shirt to my lips, grasping it with my teeth. I ripped off a strip, and wrapped it around my arm a few times. She frowned, and tied it for me. I gave her a tense smile.

My head jerked up suddenly, and I glanced towards the end of the street, where an alleyway broke off from the road. Besides a few approaching zombie's scuffling steps, I heard others, and a gunshot…two.

The zombie I could see fell, and I smiled. "Leon, Claire!" I shouted, but my voice was hoarse and quiet. I could hear their footsteps, and they came running around the corner a moment later.

I rose to my feet, and lurched towards them as they approached. Leon caught me, and gave me a swift hug. I let out a small grunt, and my wounded arm jerked away from him. He looked down, and his eyes widened at the burned skin on my arm.

"What…happened?" He asked, indicating it. I hesitated, and Jocelyn's silken Spanish voice greeted my ears, and Claire looked at her with friendly caution.

"She burned herself with a piece of metal." Leon glared down at me, and looked about to yell at me, so I was grateful for Claire's voice to interrupt.

"You're a S.T.A.R…do you know what happened to my brother? Is he okay?" her voice was tense. Jocelyn shook her head.

"I have no idea. I believe he's okay though." She responded, sympathy in her voice. Claire nodded sadly.

Leon looked around. "Laya?" he asked, his blue eyes steely.

"I was falling asleep. I needed to wake myself up."

"By burning yourself? Are you sure you're not a masochist?" Claire asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Shouldn't we be leaving?" Jocelyn's smoothly accented voice intercepted my unspoken response, and they didn't see me. Leon nodded, and then asked, "What did you say your name was?"

"Jocelyn Rodriguez."

"Officer Kennedy." I added to her sentence, annoyance fueling my tone. He glared at me, and I started walking away, limping with one hand over my burn, which was slowly starting to heal, but I knew it would take awhile. I didn't understand where he was justified to make my heart pound when he touched me or how he had the right to care about when I hurt myself.

They followed, Claire and Jocelyn talking quietly. I was listening for approaching zombies. One was nearing, so I reached for my gun, and realized that I didn't have it. I turned and looked back where the chopper had wrecked, cursing when I didn't see it.

"What'd you drop…you lost your gun?" he asked, his voice calm and controlled, but screaming that I was an idiot.

"That's what it looks like Officer Kennedy." I growled through clenched teeth, already berating myself for losing the stupid gun. I pressed my hands to my head, squeezing hard, wincing when the movement pulled on my burn, but I couldn't remember losing it.

"Damn…" I whispered, dropping my hands with another wince. Jocelyn was quiet, and Claire was glancing around, but I was sure it was gone. I sighed.

God, I was so _stupid__**. **_How could I have lost the most important weapon I had? I mentally yelled at myself for my stupidity, and clenched my hands into fists, ignoring the burning pain in my arm and the lancing pain in my leg, which was bleeding again.

Leon sighed, and raised a hand to his face, rubbing it for a second.

"Well… I guess we should distribute whatever ammo you have left, and you can just use your knife if it comes to it." Claire frowned as she said it, her hair waving slightly with a breeze that had come up.

Jocelyn started patting her waist, and cursed. I looked up at her, and she shrugged. "It looks like I lost my second gun, sorry." She apologized.

I groaned, still unable to fathom that I was that utterly idiotic.

"Whatever. No use crying over spilt blood." I muttered, and turned to start walking but stopped when I heard something that chilled the blood in my veins.

"S.T.A.R.S!" the deep voice rang over the city, and I realized I wasn't breathing.

"Let's go!" I called, and started gimping away as fast as I could, pain and exhaustion making me slow and clumsy, but I continued despite. The other three followed, Jocelyn seemed slightly confused, and her movements sounded a little stiff and pained, but she kept up pretty well.

They overtook me quickly, and Leon fell behind to my side, and quietly asked, "Do you want me to carry you?" I shook my head, and continued. He sighed, and ran forward again.

**That's that chapter. See you next time! Please review with ideas and things I need to work on! Thank you for reading! **


	15. Running

**Woohoo! This is the 15****th**** chapter! I'm so excited! Thank you so much for those of you who have read it all! *excited squeals***

**I'm not sure how much longer this will go, but it won't be too much longer, I think... Don't worry though, it's gonna take a little while before I actually get there. Besides, if all goes as planned, this most definitely will not be the first and last Laya story for those who like her…and for those who think she's whiney and self-centered, sorry, it's just how she is. **

**Disclaimer-I don't own Resident Evil…just Laya and Jocelyn. :3**

My legs were killing me. That was all I could think. "God my legs hurt like hell…" was the only thought that circulated through my mind, and it really wasn't helping. My chest hurt to, and my side was cramping up, but that didn't matter. My legs hurt too much to actually care.

All the running wasn't doing well on my body. My gimpy leg, still healing, and the burn on my arm were really messing with me, and I had fallen behind the others a long time ago. Jocelyn was in front of me, and Leon was in the very front with Claire not too far behind. I forced myself to keep going, trying to ignore the thoughts rotating in my head, and ignore the pain in my legs and arm…ignore the ache in my chest and the anguished grief over my sister I was desperately suppressing.

Overall, I was doing a miserable job at ignorance.

I hadn't hear the 'S.T.A.R.S' thing for awhile, but Leon had wanted to get as far away as possible, and Jocelyn, who actually knew the city, was directing us in the fastest way to get out of it.

My breath would've been embarrassingly loud if I wasn't in too much pain to care. But, as it was, I really didn't care since it really did hurt too much. I was focused on getting as much oxygen into my lungs as possible, without falling over or throwing up like I wanted to.

We passed zombies, as there weren't too many and we were moving too fast for them to catch us. I'd probably be happier about it if running didn't hurt so bad…

Blood was running down my leg, and there were black spots forming in my vision. I was gasping, in terrible shape for this kind of running, and was sure I was going to throw up…or pass out.

Finally, I couldn't take it, and I fell. My leg gave out, and I collapsed. I coughed, nausea rolling through me, and I knew I should get up and walk, but I couldn't, I was too busy trying just to breathe. I was taking gasping, panting breaths, just lying on the bloody, cold concrete, exhaustion and pain keeping me from rising.

I felt like a fish out of water. Probably looked like it to, a pretty weird fish though, with bedraggled red-brown scales only a little ways down its body…well, the color of my hair did match the drying blood on my clothes…

I started coughing; choking on what little saliva was left in my mouth as I tried desperately to breathe. By then, I guess they had noticed I wasn't behind, because I was dimly aware of Jocelyn's velvety Spanish voice calling breathlessly up to Leon.

They rushed back, and Claire crouched beside me, concern drenching her voice as she said my name. I shook my head, coughing a little more, and gasped, "I'm okay!" between hacking coughs.

After a few more protests, and the shaking of my head, I had almost regained my breath, and though still nauseous, I managed to sit up, with the assistance of Leon.

I realized I was practically soaked with sweat, smelled like sweat and blood, and looked worse than I smelled. I was kind of surprised that Jocelyn hadn't backed away in fear, since blood coated me like a second skin, I was pale as death, and though I knew my eyes weren't pale blue, I was sure there was a dead look in them, a reflection of the feelings inside of me. Maybe it was just the dark…

I coughed once more, and Leon seemed about ready to dive for the pouch on my bag, to get at the nasty liquid that had saved my life more than once, the stuff that combated the poisonous virus running in my veins.

"I'm fine Leon, just…tired." I panted, and then looked around, thirsty. "We'll slow down…but we're almost out of the city, aren't we Jocelyn?" he looked at her, and she nodded, her dark hair falling in her face. I nodded in response, suddenly not trusting myself enough to open my mouth as the horrible urge to retch overcame me for a moment.

I was able to swallow it, and stood up a few moments, (and dead zombies falling under Claire's shotgun skills), later. My legs were shaky and pretested holding my weight, and my arms still ached, but my chest felt better. I took a shaky step, and realized that I wouldn't be able to walk very far. I was so tired…

My eyelids were drooping, and I swayed. Leon's hands landed on my upper arms and tightened, his body suddenly behind mine close enough for me to feel the warmth coming off of it, but we weren't touching. He was ready to catch me basically.

I felt a sudden strange…fear, in my stomach, and gritted my teeth at the fluttery feelings that he summoned in me.

Jocelyn looked concerned but sweaty and sore, and Claire looked tired, worried, and ready to sit down. I smiled at the words my mind was forming, sleepy thoughts of new words like sleeried, meaning tired and worried. I giggled a little, and Leon looked at me like I was going crazy, as did Claire and Jocelyn. I shook my head, thinking it was a safe action, but lost my balance.

I fell backwards, into Leon's chest. He was hot, and I could feel that he was sweating through his uniform. He righted me quickly, and asked if I was sure I was okay, and he looked like he genuinely cared.

It sent a flutter of excitement in my stomach, and he looked slightly relieved when I replied quietly "Yes."

I walked forward, a little more cautious and focused, and was relieved when I was fine, only a slight wave of pain from my arm and stomach, and a weak protest from my shaky legs. I lurched forward suddenly, falling, and nearly barfed.

Leon suddenly scooped me into his arms, and I felt my cheeks automatically flush. He frowned. "You're not okay." He decided, and started walking briskly, with me in his arms.

I could tell by the way he held me, his arms were sagging slightly, that he was as fatigued as the rest of us. We were all so tired…We would be very good in danger. I groaned, and realized that I couldn't keep my eyes open. They closed…and I fell asleep in his arms.

**Even if it takes eight or nineteen days…I promise the next one will be longer!! XC**

**I'm sorry this one's pretty short, and not much happened…I'm kind of out of ideas at the moment…Sorry… If anyone happens to have an idea, please suggest to me! :D**


	16. Rest

**Woot. Chapter 16. Doing well so far… **

**Disclaimer-I don't own Resident Evil…**

I woke slowly, consciousness returning before I opened my eyes.

I felt gross, grimy and nasty. I could feel my clothes, the whole outfit, sticking to the cool, now-dried sweat that had drenched my body.

I was still in Leon's arms. It was warm, and after a second I realized he wasn't moving. My eyelids fluttered open, and I glanced around to find out what was wrong.

We were in an apartment or something. Leon was sitting on a couch, my head on his shoulder. I had been set on his lap; my legs curled so my feet dangled off the edge while his arms were loosely wrapped around my waist. His breathing was slow and peaceful, his eyes closed.

Jocelyn's voice smoothly separated the quietness of the darkness, and her accented voice lilted "He refused to set you down. He said it would wake you."

Her voice was smiling and I felt a small bit of heat color my cheeks…I was blushing. That was unfamiliar…

"You've been asleep for awhile…a few hours. Leon was practically falling over, so we stopped."This voice was Claire's, and it was groggy with sleep.

"My turn to stay up." She added, sitting up from the other couch, rubbing sleep from her eyes as she did. Jocelyn, who had been leaning against a sliding glass door that led to what I presumed was a fire escape, stood straight and walked tiredly to the couch.

"No, go back to sleep Claire. I've been asleep the longest, I will!" I protested, trying to untangle Leon's arms from around my waist without waking him, but failed. He grunted, and his dark blue eyes opened slowly. "Where do you think you're going Laya?" he asked sleepily.

"I was gonna watch, go to sleep." I ordered, but he shook his head, starting to wake up, but released my waist from his encircled arms. I stood and stretched, feeling better and rested, though still tired.

"No…we should get going..." he yawned as he said it, but stood, stretching a little. I shook my head and pushed him back down.

"No. We're all still tired, and we can do well from a rest. Sleep. Now." I ordered. He frowned, angry, and the other two looked back and forth between us.

Our glaring contest lasted for a few minutes, and then he gave up with a sigh. "Okay. You're right, but only for an hour longer." I smiled. I wouldn't wake them up for two.

He settled back on the couch while Claire settled on hers with Jocelyn curled up next to her, but they weren't touching. I stretched some more, wincing as it pulled the new skin over my burn.

I wondered briefly if they didn't trust Jocelyn, or just didn't know her. Then again, it's not like they knew me… well, that wasn't true. They knew me better than most everyone else now.

That thought made me hurt like my arm had been cut off. In a way, it had. Rachel had been pretty much my everything. Not in a romantic way, just… it felt a lot of the time like she was the only one I'd let into my shell.

But I had been forced to let them in…they had to know, or I'd be dead. Not that that's really a bad thing…maybe it was. I started to think about something else, Claire and Leon. Mostly Leon, with a hint of Claire. I snorted a little, as it sounded like a zombie recipe. I turned to look at him, and realized he was awake, his eyes on me.

His limbs were sprawled on the couch in a manner I could only think of as very boyish for some reason. You wouldn't see many girls laying like that, lying on his back with one leg bent and leaning against the back, the other dangling off the side along with an arm, the back of his hand resting on the floor, fingers open. His other was bent so his elbow was dangling off by his head, and his hand was kind of on his forehead. His hair was messed up, and covered one eye and half the other.

I glanced at the other women, and they were asleep on the opposite couch, still curled up in a manner resembling the fetal position. My eyes turned back to Leon, and he blinked slowly, languidly, like a cat that was telling you it was obviously superior.

"What?" my voice was quiet, and held no expectation, just simple curiosity. His brows pulled together, and he seemed to notice the slight anguish that tinged my voice and thoughts, where Rachel still lingered.

"Nothing…I just didn't want to sleep." His voice still sounded tired so I knew he was lying, but he was also concerned, which made me even sadder. I took a step back to the couch, bridging the gap, and sat with my back to him, leaning against it. His hand was next to me, and I tried to ignore it. I let my legs extend in front of me, almost able to touch the other couch, which was only about a foot out of reach of my toes.

I heard a small shuffling, and his other hand, the one from his forehead, was resting warmly on my shoulder. I looked at him from the corner of my eye and saw he had rolled on his side and lifted his head to look at me. He drew his arm underneath him and pushed himself into a sitting position, so his legs were next to me.

"Laya…You're not okay." He whispered, guessing what words I had been preparing to say. I turned my face away, drawing my knees up and resting my lips against them, wrapping my arms around them and hugging myself. He gently squeezed my shoulder, and I nearly started crying. It was a gesture I had never known.

"I have to be…" I whispered, locking the sadness and grief away by keeping a steely tone. He sighed, and took his hand back, a voice in my head shouted at me to grab it or something as another started to cry (Yeah, some people have one voice in their head, or maybe even two, a good and bad. I have many, many more…all as irritable and bad tempered as I was.), and he moved so he was sitting next to me. He kept looking at me, persistently trying to get me to look back, and I stubbornly kept my gaze locked on the empty part of the couch between where Jocelyn and Claire were sleeping.

"Laya, it wasn't your fault they died…if it's anyone's its mi-"

"It wasn't your fault." My voice was cold and hard, and my glance slid to his. I was sure my eyes were hard, like emeralds. Unfeeling and cold…that's how I wanted them to be anyway. I had to let him know that their deaths were not his fault…

He frowned, and I wondered if I had achieved my coldness or just looked more miserable than before. He held my gaze though, and said "But it is…if we hadn't left them," I interrupted again.

"I was the one who went, and I dragged you,"

"I volunteered."

"I dragged you with me. If we had stayed you might've gotten hurt instead. Or Claire, or Taigun. Honestly, I only wish that I had been there. I," I had continued like he hadn't interrupted me, but this time that was impossible, as he looked angry and his tone matched.

"I wouldn't have let you get hurt. Don't think that it doesn't matter if you get hurt Laya. Claire was almost crying when you were lying on the ground…bleeding…" his voice had gotten thick, and he looked away. He drew up his knees, but not tight like mine were. They were the perfect height for him to comfortably rest his elbows on, which he did.

"Laya…I was so worried. The only thing I could think of was seeing so many people die, and none had been that horrible. I just kept thinking 'don't die Laya, don't die'. It was all my mind could process. I didn't even think of the danger we were in, just sitting there with so much blood around…" it sounded like a confession, and I was shocked.

I just sat still, one hand had strayed to my neck, where it was touching the wound-mostly a newish scar by now, the red had faded last time I had seen it. I hadn't realized how scared they had been for me. My eyes were riveted to his face, which was ashen and pale looking, especially in the almost non-existent light.

He suddenly, without looking at me, reached over and took one of my hands, it seemed like he hadn't even thought about it. I looked away.

It bugged me that he cared. It bugged me that that bugged me. What irritated me the most though, was that I wanted to slap him for caring about me… It was such a stupid thing, caring about me. It was like 'Seriously? Someone care? You idiot!' And I wanted to tell him.

I didn't say it though. I just gently squeezed his hand, rubbing the back of it with my thumb a little. He seemed slightly surprised, and glanced at our hands, but didn't move, and neither did I.

We sat like that for the rest of the allotted hour. He was dozing, but I was awake, all of my nerves were focused on the warmth of our hands.

I had never… l couldn't say it, but felt like that, towards a guy before. And when I loved a girl, it certainly wasn't romantic. The only one I had loved was Rachel, but now… I cared for him so deeply, and was so worried he'd get hurt because of me. Or hurt at all… the though hurt me so much, I wrapped my free hand around my chest, wondering why it hurt so much.

I sighed, and after a second glance out the glass door-the sun should've been starting to rise, but I couldn't see it for some reason, it wasn't getting lighter-and gently disentangled our fingers. He woke, and sent me a questioning glance.

I stood, stretched a little, and woke Jocelyn and Claire.

"Time to ditch this popsicle stand." I grinned, using a term I had heard Rachel use once or twice. They smiled a little, and got up sleepily. Claire stood, rubbing her eyes, and Jocelyn stretched like I had.

"We're gonna get out of the city. We have to. Oh, and is it weird to anyone else that the sun hasn't risen?" I asked, pointing. Jocelyn frowned, looking where I was.

"A little…" Claire said, shrugging off sleep. They all looked a little better. More rested and energized, but still exhausted.

"Let's go…unless someone wants something..." as I said it, I realized I was starving. Dying took a lot out of you…

I wandered for a second, the others looking after me like I was deranged. I found the kitchen-and was seriously freaked out when I opened a cupboard and found a lacy pink bra hanging off a box of cereal. I closed the door and went looking somewhere else.

Finding a box of granola bars, I snatched them, and threw them into a small leather backpack I found. I then wondered if there was a shirt I could wear, since mine was covered in blood…

I went searching, hearing Leon starting to look for me, and found no women's clothing (the bra suddenly was even scarier…) but opted for a very loose black man's shirt. I found a hair tie-more scary…did an almost naked chick with her hair up live here with a fat guy?-and tied back the shirt at my waist, leaving a tail that I tucked under the shirt.

"Ready to go…" I muttered, and slung the backpack over my arms, felt the empty holsters on my belt with another mental curse, just as Leon walked in.

"Why are you in here…oh? Your shirt… We're leaving. Come on." He turned, and I raised an eyebrow…that was strange…

I followed, and we left through the glass door, down the fire escape, and out into what should've been the dawn of a new day in the once-peaceful Raccoon City.

The thought nearly made me laugh. It was more like the creepily dark supposed-to-be-morning dawn of another nightmare in the freakish Raccoon City of death.

I'm totally a morning person, can't you tell?

**It's longer than it's been in awhile…but not as long as I had hoped…**

**Please review and give ideas on how to make it better-and if you have any ideas on what should happen, go ahead and suggest 'em. I'm open to suggestions. **

**Until the next chapter! **


	17. I hate stairs

**Chapter 17, I've really come a ways, haven't I? **

**Disclaimer-I don't own Resident Evil**

With my early-bird personality in tow, I cheerfully hopped down the sunny street hand-in-hand with the two cops and the college age girl as smiling people laughed, going to their happy work places down clean, shiny streets.

Oh god I wish that was true.

In reality, I was walking slowly down a rusted, unused fire escape that I was honestly did not think would hold the weight of four adults. Very, very cautiously, walking down a rusted and unused fire escape… That is reason to cause alarm, right? I'm not just crazy, am I?

I edged down, staying as near to the building as I could. Of course, of freaking course, something wrong _had_ to happen though.

The sturdiest looking step down the whole escape so far (Okay, three steps really isn't enough to judge, but I'm a judging person. Deal with it, will you?) Made me feel a little hopeful, and Leon, Claire, and Jocelyn suddenly had a little bit more of a chance of surviving this fire escape in my mind…

So I stepped on it without bothering to put only part of my weight on it first. I just stepped on it without thinking.

And it had to have been the weakest step for the way it collapsed.

It fell out from under me, and my whole body jerked down, half of me landing on the step above me, as my falling leg jarred my arms and thigh as I caught myself, in a very awkward, unnatural position, as my leg that hadn't fallen was twisted and bent. It wasn't broken, but it hurt like hell. I had shouted, and the fire escape dropped a little. The others all shouted, and Leon had reached a hand out to try and grab me as I fell, but had managed to fall himself, landing mostly on top of me. Jocelyn was on one knee, and Claire was doubled over, having been kicked in the gut by Leon's flailing leg.

After a second of everyone assessing their wounds, I grunted "Well, I think we can agree that I'm slightly mentally challenged."

My words seemed to stir Leon, who immediately, but carefully, pulled him off of me, and tried to help me up, but stopped when I shrieked in pain as he pulled my arm. I hadn't noticed the broken metal of the fire escape had ripped through my pants and scraped the skin of my leg, and pulling on me dragged the bleeding flesh back over the metal. I groaned, and Claire and Jocelyn's voices floated through the fog in my head.

"What's wrong?" Claire's breathless, slightly pained voice wheezed and Jocelyn's liquid Spanish accented words flowed from behind Claire "Are you okay Laya?"

Leon's words were what I heard though, "Laya, there's blood on your chin."

He was wondering why, so was I truthfully, and it took me a second to register the throbbing of my tongue. I had bitten it, hard, either when my chin hit the metal or when Leon landed on me. I grunted, and managed to pull myself out slightly, without ripping up my leg completely.

Now I was on one knee, the other leg still through the hole, trying to pull it up the rest of the way. I grunted, panting, and Leon had reached a hand down to help. I shook my head. "Keep going, I'll be down in a second, go around me and be careful of the steps, though, be really really very careful." I pleaded, trying to figure out a way to staunch the bleeding of my leg with no supplies after I'd gotten it out of the broken stair…maybe I should actually get it out first though…

And people have said my priorities weren't straight, I roll my eyes at them!

They skirted around me, and managed to make it down with no more mishaps in a few minutes. I hadn't moved.

Leon yelled, "Laya, do you need help?" But I had shook my head, then yelled back "No, I'll be okay."

But still, I didn't move.

My leg was bleeding, slowly; the scrapes weren't that bad, but I still just sat still, my knee aching against the metal grate of the fire escape. There were indents in my knee and hands, I could feel them, but I didn't move. I felt it when Leon climbed the fire escape again. His steps were cautious and slow, careful, but he still made it up to me fairly quickly.

"Laya?" his voice was soft, and he bent down to me. "Laya, why aren't you getting up?" he breathed in my ear.

"I'm stuck… My leg won't come out." I growled through clenched teeth, my bangs falling in front of my eye so I couldn't see very well. He looked at it for a moment, my bleeding leg, the ripped pants, and the way it was stuck in the metal.

He reached a moment later, and grasped something next to my leg. I looked down, and watched as he unhooked a small piece of denim from the scraping rusted metal.

"Oh." I whispered, pulling my leg out easily now. He chuckled a little, lightly, and I glared at the rusty steps, then turned and very, very carefully walked down, not trusting any of them now.

Finally, about five minutes later, I made it down, and my foot touched asphalt.

I was ready to kiss the blood-stained tarry road beneath my feet. Inside, I was practically shaking, but managed somehow to keep on my feet. Leon hopped down beside me, and was annoyingly calm.

"Let's keep," I cut him off rudely and said.

"Moving. Or we'll never get out of here."

I started walking, and they followed quietly.

"I…I think we should split up." A Spanish voice commented after a few minutes of (near) silence. I stopped dead in my tracks and whirled. "WHY?" I practically shouted, and I could see both Claire and Leon were as stunned as me.

"With the four of us…we're a bigger target this way." There was an authority to her accented voice, the kind that was hard to ignore, because it meant that the person talking totally believed what they were saying. And it made sense but…

"Who…who would the groups be though?" I whispered, and cast quick, dark glances at all three of them, feeling as if I wanted to split into three and have a piece of me go with all of them. Leon seemed to be doing the same, as did Claire, while Jocelyn's stare was level, and slowly meeting all of ours, one at a time.

"I don't know." Was her simple answer, which made my world shake a little.

Fear invaded, my stomach, and it took a second for me to realize I was physically shaking with the thought of abandoning two of them. I had grown attached in the short time I had known these people, dependent on their company.

"I think… Leon should go with Laya, if we really have to split up." Claire's quiet voice whispered into the moaning dark. I looked up from the bloody body I had been staring at, switching my gaze to her living face.

"Why?"I asked. I wasn't protesting, just trying to see her reasoning.

"Because of your… infliction. If you get sick…Jocelyn or I wouldn't know how to help you, but Leon does…It's best for your survival."

"But I don't care about _my_ survival!" I exploded, angry that she was worried about me. "I want you guys to live…" I nearly shouted. I turned, and pointed.

"There's a zombie over there, coming around the corner." I said simply, and Leon raised his gun, waited until the zombie was visible, aimed carefully, and pulled the trigger.

"Infliction…?" Jocelyn asked, looking between the three of us. I shrugged, "It doesn't matter now. Let's just…split up and go I guess…" My voice was agonized, and pain lanced deep in my chest at the thought of leaving them.

Jocelyn nodded. Claire lunged towards me and hugged me hard. I hugged her back, squeezing the younger girl tightly for a second before releasing her from my grasp, and watched as she gave Leon a quick hug, then walked into the night, leaving me and Leon alone.

"Do…you think they're gonna survive?" It was a whispered question, I was too worried to break the quiet and ruin the hope that they would come back.

"I don't know." He whispered back, and I wondered if he felt the same fear as I did.

It probably wasn't the best idea, but…we weren't thinking straight, were we?

**Done! Took me awhile though-sorry… XP and not the best, most realistic ending buuut…the next chapter will be better, okay? Please forgive me! XC**


	18. There is no excuse

**WHOO! Chapter 18! =)**

**Disclaimer-I don't own Resident Evil.**

"Why….why was I stupid enough to let us split up?!" I moaned angrily, raising my hands to my face to cover it. Leon sighed, again, and said for the third time "She made a good point Laya, and neither of us remembered that we don't know the city very well. That's all." He ran a hand through his hair.

"Still." I muttered, refusing to drop it. We were lost, and it was my fault. Jocelyn had been the only one who actually knew Raccoon City. The rest of us didn't live here, so, Leon and I being Jocelyn-less, were completely lost.

We were heading in the general direction we had been going when we were still a group, but I was sure we had taken a wrong turn earlier on. There was no way we couldn't be almost out of the city by now if we were going the wrong way. But, Leon was convinced we were going the right way, and would be fine.

"What do you think this is? The infection I mean, what is…?" I knew what he meant though…vaguely. "Some kind of sickness that's transmitted through saliva I guess. I really have no idea Leon, I know just as much as you." I sighed, but I was still convinced Umbrella was behind it. This wasn't natural, and I knew firsthand that Umbrella played with this kind of shit, and they had the funds to do it.

But I didn't bring up my suspicions. There was no reason to now. Why pinpoint the blame on something when pretty much no one else would believe it? I needed to get proof first, and then I'd point fingers.

I shook my head, trying to concentrate on the situation at hand. I started walking again, as I had stopped, and tried to remember where we had been. I was convinced that where we were was familiar… "Leon, have we been here before?" I asked cautiously, looking around me. He paused, and shrugged. "Maybe…" he said slowly.

"That's helpful." I snapped my patience breaking. He sighed, and I could see his patience was also wearing thin. "Laya, I… Let's just get out of here, okay?"

I stayed silent, and continued walking, the iron pipe I had found earlier, since it was the only weapon I could find, in a ready position in front of me. I wasn't in what you could consider a good mood. Quite the opposite actually, and that anger would be unleashed on any zombie stupid enough-or hungry enough-to walk my way.

In short, whatever zombie came to me first.

**About an hour away from Leon and Laya…**

Jocelyn and Claire were winding their way through the city streets, working steadily towards the limits. Jocelyn knew the town, and constantly encouraged Claire that they were almost out, hope strong in the Spanish woman's voice.

Claire sighed, looking around. It didn't feel like they had made any progress and she was worried sick about Leon and Laya. "I wonder if they're okay…" she whispered, agonized.

"Of course they are, Claire. Laya's too much of a spitfire to go down without a fight, and Leon won't let himself, or her, get hurt. They care about each other to much to let the other get hurt or killed." Jocelyn smiled reassuringly as she said it, but the muscles around her eyes were tense, telling Claire that she was worried to. Claire nodded slowly, realizing that Jocelyn's words were fairly true, and she found she was less worried then before.

**Back with Leon and Laya**

I glanced around, wary about every corner. I had seen monsters of all sorts, zombies, giant mutant freaks with deformed arms, zombie dogs… You name it I'd probably seen something similar and even more freakish and terrorizing.

I was still pissed off at everything and/or nothing. And it smelled horrible here. Everything smelled like blood and decay, which pissed me off and was starting to give me a headache.

Well, not everything smelled bad. He wasn't too far behind me, close enough that I could feel the heat coming of his blue-clad body, and I could smell him. His scent was comforting…and horrible. It reminded me of earlier-just a few hours ago when I was faced with death, the sight of my undead sister… When I realized I was starting to fall in love with the quiet, somber cop.

"What…what's the first thing you want to do when you get out of the city?" I asked quietly, wanting to hear his voice.

"When _we_ get out of the city, I want to sleep, eat, and shower. Then I want to find who did this and destroy them." He answered simply.

I sighed, agreeing with him, but first I wanted to get him out safely. He was my first priority. Not that I'd tell him that. I know he would just disagree with me and try to talk me out of it, argue that I was more important or something. Basically just bullshit that would waste time, which was something I was sure there wasn't enough of. Once the government got wind of this, which would probably be pretty fast, either they or Umbrella would act, Umbrella to show they were heroes and the government to protect the nation.

I had a feeling we wouldn't live through whatever they decided to do to eradicate the zombies.

I kept walking, keeping my eyes and ears open for approaching undead, trying to keep my mind off of Leon, Claire and Jocelyn. All three of which I was worried about, Claire and Jocelyn especially. I had no way of knowing if they were okay or not, which scared me.

"Laya, when do you think the sun's going to rise?" Leon asked, and when I glanced behind me he was staring at the sky.

"Uh, I don't know Leon. It should soon… I don't know what time it is so…" I looked up to, realizing that was really weird. I glanced back at him again, and he lowered his dark gaze to mine. "It seems like it should've by now, doesn't it?" he asked seriously.

I nodded, unable to speak with his dark blue gaze penetrating me. He looked back up, releasing me, and then looked forward and continued walking. After a moment I followed, tightening my grip on the iron bar. My mouth was dry, and I realized I was parched. I tried to swallow, but it did nothing.

Sighing quietly, I continued forward, walking next to him, trying to think of a way to wet my dry mouth.

For the most part, it kept me from worrying about my friends, but there was still a trickle of fear every time I heard a shuffle of feet and a moan of the undead.

"Leon…I think…I know who's behind this." I whispered, unsure of whether I should tell him.

He turned his head slightly, glancing at me. "Who?" he asked quietly.

"Umbrella Corp. I think Umbrella is doing this." I whispered.

He stopped, and turned towards me. "Laya, Umbrella is the biggest pharmaceutical company in the world. How in hell could they do this without anyone knowing? That's insane and impossible Laya..." he continued into a rant about it.

"Shut up." I whispered, hearing something. He didn't hear me, and continued talking. I said it again, a little louder. "Shut up."

My heart was pounding. I couldn't hear what was coming towards us over his voice. I wanted to focus on it, listen to the dark tones.

He didn't hear me again, and continued. I was desperate, starting to panic about whatever was coming. "SHUT UP!" I yelled, and lurched forward, grabbing his face in my hands, dropping the metal bar and pulled him to me, pressing my lips to his. He froze, and I tried to let go, but realized I couldn't. I didn't want to. I hadn't realized how much I had longed for this.

After a few seconds, way to short in my opinion, the sound, much, much closer than before, rang in my ears.

_Click click click…_ It sounded like dog's toenails on asphalt.

I fell back from Leon, dropping my hands and snatching up the discarded pipe and turned to face the oncoming dogs. There were three, one Doberman, one looked like a German shepherd, but I couldn't tell through the blood. The other was probably a border collie from the black and white fur, but it was hard to see through the blood, and with the chunks of it ripped out and such.

I raised the metal bar as the first, the Doberman, lunged at me. Leon reacted quickly, snapping out of his surprised daze and fired at the shepherd, hitting it in the side of the neck. It yelped, and snarled, jumping at him.

I lunged out of reach of the Doberman, and swung the bar, hard, at the shepherd as the collie sprung at me, jaws open. I hit the shepherd, which fell to the ground, stunned or dead. Leon shot at the collie, which had nearly landed on me, and I whirled, connecting the pipe to the Doberman's head with a solid crack. It fell, dead, and it was quiet.

Leon sent a bullet into the forehead of the shepherd, and it was over.

"Laya, what was that." His voice broke the silence a moment later.

"I think it's a dog, Leon." I responded without turning to look at him.

"You know that's not what I'm talking about Laya." He sighed. I gritted my teeth, hating that I wanted nothing more than to kiss him again.

"That was my way of shutting you up Leon." I snapped.

I heard him walk towards me, but I stayed still, and was surprised when his arms encircled me. "Shut me up more often." He whispered, tilting my head back with one hand, and kissing me.

Okay, so that was my imagination running wild. In a perfect world, the infection in Raccoon City would never have happened, and Leon and I probably would never have met. What actually happened was I collapsed before he could respond to my comment about shutting him up.

I just fell, my world blacking out then fading back in. I blinked a few times; Leon was hovering over me, looking worried. I coughed once, and sat up. "Are you okay?" he asked seriously. I nodded slowly, realizing I was.

"I…wonder what that was about." I whispered to myself.

"You were out for a few minutes. Scared me half to death Laya." He frowned at me. My gaze flew to his.

"What? A few minutes, I, I thought I was only unconscious for a second or two." He shook his head slowly.

"I was worried." He said softly. I couldn't think of anything to say.

"Laya, why did you kiss me?" he asked his voice still soft. I could feel a blush on my cheeks, and whispered, "You wouldn't stop talking, and I needed to listen."

This was very unlike me. I had never behaved this way before in my life, and it kind of scared me.

He sighed. "Okay." He extended his hand and helped me up. I knew he didn't believe that was all, but I was grateful that he wasn't going to push.

I grabbed his hand and let him help me up, then scooped up my weapon, and walked beside him into the dark, rather chilly, infected streets of Raccoon City, worried about my friends and trying not to let my mind linger on the kiss I gave him.

**Had to throw in a little bit of romance so it actually is romance… XD**

**Enjoy, please review if you like it! :D**


	19. Morning

**Oh god, it's been forever. I'm so sorry, guys. x_x**

**Disclaimer- Resident Evil is not mine~**

I had been through a lot over the past ten hours. Despite the short nap earlier, I was completely exhausted. Even injuries that had healed ached, and the only thing that wasn't dragging was my mind. It was flying all over the place, thinking of Jocelyn and Claire, Rachel, Leon… Almost everyone I had ever known had flitted through my mind at least once. I tried to be scared for them, but after a few minutes the terror that built choked me, and I had to shove them out. Deep breaths filled my lungs as I focused on the streets ahead of me. Finally, the buildings had started to grow smaller, more residential, and thinned out. I looked to Leon, who tiredly shuffled next to me. His blond hair looked ratty and greasy from sweat, and his blue eyes were dull with suppressed fear and fatigue. My eyes turned forward again, and I coughed once.

"You okay?" he grunted softly, his voice confirming my assessment of him.

"Yeah, I'm fine." I affirmed. "We're almost out, Leon." I gave him a weak smile, and for the first time in hours, felt a weak flicker of hope in my chest.

"Mhm… But where's the sun?" he spat, suddenly sounding angry and scared instead of tired.

"I don't know… Maybe time's gone by faster than we thought?" I muttered lamely. He shook his head and fell silent.

We kept walking, shooting zombies when necessary and talking only occasionally. "Do you think… We could get a car?" I asked, glancing around at the vehicles parked around us. He glanced around, surprised, as if seeing them for the first time.

"I don't want to waste time looking for keys…" the policeman sighed dubiously.

"But if we find some, think of the time we'll save!" I chirped, and jogged over to a nearby car, ignoring the shriek of pain in my sore muscles. I tried the door of a semi-large truck. The door was unlocked, but upon further inspection I found no keys. Leon had sighed and wandered to a nearby van, and shook his head at me when the door was locked.

We did this to a few more cars, checking each thoroughly. After about twenty minutes, I sighed and gave up. "You're right." I grumbled, angry that I'd made us lose so much time.

"Laya… look!" he pointed, and at first I thought it was at a small vehicle that's door was swung wide open and was in the middle of the street—a bloody pile of once-human sitting next to it—but after a moment of staring I realized he was pointing beyond it, at the horizon. It was turning grey, the mountainous line growing hazy but visible.

My jaw dropped. "Let's go, Leon." I couldn't explain the sense of dread that accompanied the knowledge of the rising sun, but I also couldn't get rid of it. I ran—flat out ran—to the car, ducking in to see a key in the ignition. I turned it, and squealed at the rumble of the engine. I slid into the driver's seat as he opened the door. "Shit, Laya. There's almost no gas." He pointed out, indicating the arrow that was hovering nearly at the empty.

"There's enough to get us a little ways." I grunted, and put the car in neutral before hitting the gas. The little car shot forward, making me grin and Leon swear softly. Driving was a something I loved to do fast. I regularly got speeding tickets due to my belief that going under twenty miles was a waste of time, if you were on pavement in good weather. Have a problem with it? You wouldn't be the first.

We barreled out of the city at 40 miles an hour, much to my irritation. But cars in the road, similar to this one, made my attempt at a quick exit hard, and navigating around them at a higher speed would've almost ensured our demise.

"Laya, could you drive any faster?" Leon growled through gritted teeth. I knew he wanted me to slow down, but I decided to willfully misinterpret him.

"Not safely." I replied, and grinned as he rolled his eyes but fell silent.

Eventually, houses grew even sparser. Trees started popping up, and soon we were alone on the road, surrounded by trees and seeing incredibly few zombies. The arrow on the gas had fallen to empty though, and I glanced worriedly at it as I drove.

Soon the car started slowing, and sputtering. I sighed angrily, and took my foot off the peddle, letting the vehicle coast.

"Gas?" my passenger asked quietly.

"None." I answered blandly. He nodded, and looked ahead. Eventually, the car rolled to a stop, and I killed the engine. A thick sigh heaved it's way out of my chest, and I kicked the door open and stepped out of the car. Looking around, I saw we'd made it into the forest. "Well. I guess we follow the road?" I asked, and he nodded, and started walking.

The light grew as we continued on. Soon, I could see him distinctly, even though the trees blocked a good deal of light.

"It's morning." My voice cut through the silence like a knife, and made my companion glance up. "Yeah, it is." He muttered.

And I frowned, listening.

"Do you hear… A plane?" I asked softly. He mirrored my frown and also fell silent, straining his ears to hear what I was.

"No." he kept listening, as did I, and after a moment, he nodded suddenly. "Yeah, I do."

And when the noise grew undeniable, I realized what was going on. I turned to Leon, yelled something indistinct at him, just as we were both blown off our feet and flew away from the city.

My last thought was for him, of him. I hoped he lived. Leon.

* * *

I dreamed. At least, I think I dreamed. I was with Rachel, anyway. She was braiding my hair, something she liked to do a lot when we were younger. She was always so nice to me… I turned to her, and asked her how she was with me, if she was dead. My darling sister responded with a blissful smile. "You asked me to come here, so I did."

"But, that doesn't make sense!" I cried, but she laughed, and turned my head back to face forward, and continued to braid my hair. "Yes it does. You're in a space that's all your own, anything you want can happen here. You asked me to come, so here I am. You wanted to be safe and happy, like you were when we were young, so I started braiding your hair, like I used to. Laya, you almost died. Your mind's compensating for it."

"Leon!" I cried, and jerked up, whirling to my friend. She blinked at me, then smiled. "He'll be alright, Laya. Just sit down." I frowned at her, but let myself believe her words and sat back down.

"What happened?" I asked softly.

"I think you know the answer to that, but I guess I can tell you. The city was bombed." She stated matter-of-factly.

"What happened to Jocelyn and Claire?" I asked, knowing she wouldn't have an answer, but having to ask.

"I imagine they're okay. Jocelyn knew how to get out of the city. They probably did much faster than you and Leon." The woman nodded encouragingly, and I fell quiet.

"When will I wake up?" I whispered.

"Whenever you want, although, it'll be hard when you do." She warned. "And you don't have to…" she added. "You could stay here, of course, then you'd be dead." Her shoulders rose and fell in a nonchalant shrug.

I thought about this. Death wasn't something I was really scared of, but I wanted to know what happened to Leon. Of course, giving up now, resting in death, sounded so peaceful. If I went back, woke up, then there'd be so much pain to deal with…

Suddenly, I thought of when I'd kissed Leon. His lips on mine… My chest ached with longing, and I sighed. My decision was of course made. I would suffer, as I had since I was young, and I would do my best to save Leon. If I too late, if he had died, then I would just kill myself. It wouldn't be hard, and I would be grateful. I nodded, and sighed.

"Can I stay with you a little longer?" I whispered, looking at my sister, who smiled.

"Of course," Rachel announced cheerfully, "But the longer you stay here the less likely you are to help Leon." She cautioned. I thought about it, and then hugged her.

"Then I have to go." The words made my chest ache at the thought of leaving her again, but she hugged me back and kissed my cheek.

"I know, Laya." She laughed lightly. "There wasn't really any other option you'd have gone with, we both know that." She kissed and hugged me again. "Go get 'em, Laya!" she cheered happily, and I felt tears spill down my cheeks as I nodded.

"I love you, Rachel. I'm so sorry you died." Her lips turned up indulgently, and she brushed back my reddish bangs. "It wasn't your fault. I love you too, Laya." Then she was gone.

* * *

My eyes flickered open slowly. The miniscule movement hurt, and I groaned, which also hurt. I looked to my right, not moving my head as I did. I couldn't see Leon there, so I looked the other way. I could see a vague dark shape to my left, and tried to call his name, but I couldn't find my voice.

A pounding grew in my head, originating from the back, and I realized I couldn't feel half of my right leg. My entire body ached, but I searched for my vocal cords, searched for my ability to speak.

"L-leon…" I choked out, my voice hardly even a whisper, and it hurt.

But I was rewarded with a response. He groaned, and his eyes flickered open. His face was streaked with blood, I could see that now. I realized my head had fallen to the side, and I was staring at him. That explained why it and my neck flared with white-hot pain.

"I hurt." He coughed, and grinned slightly. My eyes grew wet, and tears started falling from them.

He was alive.

**Oh man, that was waaaay belated. I'm so sorry, guys. I'll do better next time! *-***


	20. The End

**Chapter Twenty… Going way farther than I thought I would. It's taken me a long time to get here, but we're almost finished!**

**I know it's short, but we're getting down to the end.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Resident Evil.**

The world was fuzzy, and my ears rang. My entire body was in agony, but joy flooded through me. Leon was alive.

"Laya?" he croaked after a few moments of silence from me.

"Me… too." I choked out finally. I watched him visibly relax.

"I don't think… I..move…" his voice was growing a little softer, harder to hear.

"Same." I coughed, and coughed again. A horrifyingly deep pain was summoned with each, but I couldn't stop them. I felt blood trickle out of my mouth, splatter some, but I could do nothing about it. Leon's face grew concerned as my hacking grew harsher, and yet… I couldn't react.

"Laya? Is it an attack?" he started struggling to sit up, his teeth gritting and tears falling from his eyes as he forced himself to move despite the pain. I tried to tell him not to, but couldn't, so I watched as he tortured himself.

He dragged his body next to mine, fumbled in the pouches on my belt until he found the syringe and vial of my suppressant. My coughs deepened into convulsions, my body screaming in anguish every time I moved. Finally, he managed to stick the syringe in my neck, inject me with the vile liquid.

After a few moments, my body settled, and I lay still, crying softly, until the pain finally faded. He lay next to me, panting and crying. Blood was smeared all over him, and I couldn't tell if it was old or new, mine or his.

We lay still together for I don't know how long. I grew cold, and my face was numb from the wind hitting the tears that refused to stop falling. I stared at Leon the entire time. He refused to let me fall asleep, and sat talking to me. I knew it hurt him, but I was to weak to tell him to stop, so I listened.

Leon told me what injuries he could see I had, a head wound he guessed to be a concussion, a broken leg, tons of scrapes. He wasn't sure what else. His voice disjointedly spoke of his own life, getting tense and eventually he started coughing, and his voice cracked every few words as his throat dried. After what must have been hours, he fell silent, unable to speak.

My eyes jerked open. I hadn't realized I'd fallen asleep, but the sound of a cracking branch woke me. Leon was lying next to me still, also asleep. His breath was harsh, but even. I groaned, and with a huge effort that involved a lot of teeth grinding and more than a few tears, I managed to set my hand on his cheek.

Blue eyes jerked open, and his whole body tensed when my hand fell softly on his face. "Laya?" he murmured.

"Listen." I managed to mouth. He frowned, and followed my order.

Another branch cracked, and a voice raised through the trees.

"Hello? Is anyone there?"

His fathomless blue eyes widened. "Here…" he whispered, swallowed, then tried again.

"Here!" he managed to cry, but still his voice was to soft.

"G-gun…" I hissed. The rookie cop looked at me, and then his hand found his police-issue handgun, pointed it away from us and away from the voice slowly, painfully, and fired.

After a moment of silence, through which the shot rang heavily, the voice called again. "Over here, Mindy! Come on!" and the sounds of brush crashing and twigs snapping came rushing towards us. Leon dropped his gun, and his hand fell. He was panting from the effort, but still turned his head back to mine, and he shifted it forward a little bit so his lips were next to my hand, for it had fallen off his cheek when he shot. He kissed my finger softly, and gave me a small, hopeful smile.

My heart broke, and tears started falling again as three people ran up to us, and I fell unconscious once more.

_After_

I had suffered a major concussion in the blast, major blood loss, and three fractured ribs. My left femur was broken in three places, my right knee was badly wrenched, and I broke four fingers on my right hand. My entire body was bruised and scraped, and a lung collapsed at some point. It took me a month to heal completely.

I lived.

Leon suffered a mild concussion, eight broken toes, and bruises all over his body. It took him a little longer to recover, but only because he wasn't infected like me.

He lived.

The people who found us, a kind search-and-rescue team out looking for survivors (I had a suspicion they were looking for stray zombies, but never questioned them.) took us to a hospital. I left early, against doctor's recommendation, and never looked back. I called Leon once, to see how he was.

We lived.

It took some digging, but I finally found out what happened to Claire and Jocelyn. The Spanish woman had died saving Claire, leaving behind a loving husband and two year old son. Claire made it out alive though, and was finishing college. I heard that her brother had also survived, that she had found him. I was glad for that.

I was right. Umbrella Corp had been behind the infection. Somehow the information leaked, and the government took them down. That doesn't mean anything though. Umbrella's gone, but things like that are much like the Greek Hydra. When one falls, two more spring up in it's place.

I kind of holed up for awhile. I had lost a lot in Raccoon City, and recovering was a long process. It took months, but finally I could face the day without a breakdown. I still wake up screaming every night, but that wasn't that uncommon anyway.

I've started training. I was hired by the government, of all things. They're teaching me a lot. I'm working quickly, working hard. I hope to become a special agent. I want to help fight things like Umbrella, poison and kill them as seeds, before they ever have time to blossom. People overlooked Umbrella, let them slip by. I won't let that happen again.

I am Laya Markl. I was born to researchers, I was kidnapped, abused, and I was saved. After being adopted, I learned to love. I learned to live. I have seen monsters of all sorts, and I know now that they might not be the most lethal, but the worst are human.

I am infected. Soon, I will die. But that doesn't mean I can't go down fighting. I have changed, and I have grown. Before I die, I will find Leon Kennedy, and I will tell him the truth.

But for now, I will content myself with knowing that we're alive.

**Ohman. I didn't realize when starting this chapter that it would be the end xD Let me know if you want another Laya story. I'll be happy to oblige. Thank you for staying with us to the end! I feel like all of us involved in this story have grown through the however many years it took to right.**

**If you want another Laya story, I promise it won't take as long as this one did. **

**Remember, I love reviews, so please review! :D**


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